I admit, I thought of this blog topic on a plane returning from a very nice vacation in Mexico. It occurred to me that strategic planning (which, to me, is the backbone of every successful business) seems so hard, painful and difficult to everyone else. The truth is that, like anything else, it has to do with what you know and like. If you aren’t familiar with or rarely do strategic planning–or possibly you fear what you will learn–it is pretty daunting. But, many of us do it much more often than we realize. Here are some examples of planning that involve setting a vision or desired outcome and implementing the tasks to achieve it:
- Planning a vacation
- Planning a wedding
- Planning a big corporate or non-profit event
- Planning for Christmas or other big family holiday celebrations
- Planning a grocery shopping trip (if you have the menus prepared in advance and shop with a list!)
- Developing a health care plan for wellness or for a chronic illness
- Doing estate planning
- A plan for attacking the “to-do” list for the next day
- What else? Let’s add to the list!
Planning is an important principle when organizing any big endeavor: have the end in mind, understand the tasks necessary to achieve it, determine the time-critical path, live within your resources or find new ones, and engage the right players to get the job done.
So let’s get busy getting a strategic plan for guiding our businesses in this interesting time…we have things to accomplish!