Last year marked the beginning of a new decade and most of our five- and 10-year plans were set aside immediately due to the global pandemic, which has had transformational effects on our organizations. We have been living day to day, month to month for over a year now, while adjusting to constant change. Living in the NOW has become the norm. But the time has come for organizations to return to setting mid- and longer-term strategies to be ready for a newly awakening economy.
Strategic plans provide the framework for success, uniting the team in common goals while working together to determine how to achieve them. The best plans also have a measurement component and a mechanism to hold each other accountable by assigning ownership of actions and timelines. It is also the most valuable tool to reach your potential as an organization, and plan for success.
It is true we still face many uncertainties, and we may now truly understand ‘change’ is the only constant, yet you can choose to design mid-to-long term plans that factor in multiple scenario features, and provide maximum fluidity. All strategic plans are in fact living documents that will change as internal or external factors emerge and they serve an extremely useful purpose.
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Consider relaunching a strategic planning process to reflect what you want to achieve in the next three, five or 10 years. This process has many benefits in addition to the most obvious one – to drive your business forward. These include team building; reality testing; potential for a paradigm shift in thinking and business modeling; the opportunity to leverage collective intelligence in new ways; to create the possibility for new innovative ideas and to also foster big picture thinking.
Now is the time to act, think big and invest in your future and your organization’s future.