Tis the season! No, not the holiday season, although that will soon be here! For business owners and leaders, it’s time to reflect on the past year, examine the competitive landscape, explore possible initiatives and set goals.
A good strategic planning process will help you:
- Align company goals with your company mission and vision,
- Define steps to achieve these goals,
- Assign responsibility and timelines,
- Track progress toward this year’s goals but also take steps to achieve your three to five-year goals.
Strategic Planning can be a powerful process if done well. It can be the difference between driving straight to your business goals or taking a long, winding road to get there.
As you look forward, consider these four common strategic planning pitfalls:
Strategic Planning Pitfall #1: Inability to Say “No”
No company can do everything. Many ideas are brought to the table in a good strategic planning brainstorm session. The real challenge can come with saying “no” to some good ideas in order to prioritize a reasonable number of initiatives (4-6) that can be well executed in the coming years. Many times, leadership teams unable to narrow the focus don’t do well at any initiatives and hamper their overall business success. A good facilitator can help company leaders with this challenge.
Strategic Planning Pitfall #2: Lack of Ownership
With 4-6 solid initiatives in hand, the team should be able to get back to the office and make things happen in a focused way, right? Wrong! There must be assigned accountability to connect plans to actions. Without specific action items assigned to people or departments, with expected timelines the strategic initiatives will not have accountability with forward momentum.
Strategic Planning Pitfall #3: Communication
It’s not possible, nor desirable, to involve every employee in the development of the strategic initiatives, but employees work harder for something they feel a part of. It’s critical for broad communication of these new priorities to the whole company. By bringing their direct reports into the fold, senior leaders gain their commitment to the strategic initiatives, ensuring success.
Strategic Planning Pitfall #4: Trying to do Everything Immediately
A good strategic plan usually includes multi-year initiatives. It can be tempting to try to front-load all the action items into the first few months but doing this rarely works. The most effective plans are those which have realistic time and resource allocation.
This season, give yourself a gift that keeps on giving; incorporate a strong strategic plan, avoid these common pitfalls and find yourself measurably closer to your destination.
This article comes from our partners at GreatAmerica Financial. Read the full story here – Four Common Pitfalls in Strategic Planning.
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