Ah, leadership. It’s a lot like raising children: alternately both a pleasure and, at times, painful!

Let’s see if we can turn some of that pain into pleasure.

How would you answer these three questions that keep business leaders and owners up at night?

1) Do 100% of the people in your organization, from top to bottom, really know where your company is headed?

2) If three great opportunities came your way this week and you only have the resources to pursue one of the three, would you clearly know which one to pursue?

3) Are you getting the full potential from every employee?

Answering “No” to any of these questions means you are likely suffering unnecessary pain. But there’s hope!

A well executed strategic plan can change your answers to “Yes.”

HOW?

A strategic plan will link daily decisions and actions with a vision of where the organization wants to be in the future. You’ll know your priorities and be able to align decisions and resources. If done well, it taps into the creativity and energy of every person on the team and gets them fully engaged.

MEETING LEADERSHIP CHALLENGES

Having a strategic plan helps us accomplish the five most important leadership challenges of running a business.

1) Priorities

The plan helps you and your entire team stay focused on the most important priorities that match company resources. You’ll define a clear vision and purpose owned by all employees. You’ll know what your goals are and what takes precedence. Daily decisions are made within the context of your plan, which keeps you from wasting precious time and resources chasing rainbows!

2) Data

You can’t keep score if you don’t know what to measure and what gets measured gets done. Within your strategic plan, you will decide your key indicators, the numbers that you need to measure. So ask yourself, “What numbers need to go up or down for this business to be successful?” Then decide which numbers, ratios and percentages you need to faithfully track daily, weekly, monthly or quarterly. A brief set of key indicators helps you focus on results, and avoid any activity that does not support your desired outcome. Those same metrics create accountability standards.

3) Creativity

Surprise! Being a leader does not mean you have the best ideas and having the best ideas does not make you a good leader. Tap into the creativity of the people who are actually carrying out the work. When team members bounce ideas off of each other, they arrive at solutions that may never have emerged alone. Your real job as a leader is to bring out the best ideas and performance of your team, not just generate ideas.

4) Commitment

People are much more likely to carry out a plan they helped create. That’s worth repeating. People are much more likely to carry out a plan they helped create. When employees are involved in a project from the start, they are more likely to be committed to the ideals it represents. Strategic planning activities motivate your employees to deliver their very best effort on behalf of the company.

5) Execution

When employees participate in a creative strategic planning process, they will know where the company is headed and know how to participate in making that happen. You provide the structure & rhythm. Employees participate in goals & actions. Ask yourself who you will depend on to carry out this plan, then get them involved.

6) Accountability

People will know what they are accountable for. Not just tasks – results and metrics. People will understand the ramifications of their individual performance on the entire company.

PROCESS VS. CONTENT

The true value of a strategic plan is not in the document itself. It is in the process of creating it, involving your employees from the bottom up. Their participation engages them at the deepest level, empowers them to be more effective, and enables them to be better-informed decision makers.

Strategic planning is a process, not an event. Your plan does you no good if you end up with a beautifully bound document that ends up in a notebook that gathers dust on a shelf. It should be a living, breathing document that everyone understands and uses.

A robust strategic plan is the best way to get creativity, focus, commitment, productivity and accountability and the most effective path to success.

It’s a remarkable confidence builder and an amazing learning experience for your entire company.

So what are you waiting for? Let’s turn some of that pain into pleasure!

I’m anxious to hear your success stories, so let me know how it goes.