We all saw that during COVID-19, most of our strategic planning had to be thrown out of the window of our home offices. And all indications are that the disruptions will continue, not just with load-shedding but also with the changing weather patterns.
In the past, we had five-year plans as to where we wanted to see our organisations; now it even seems ridiculous to ask someone in an interview where they see themselves in five years’ time. But even though things will change and are changing rapidly, we need to have a strategy for our business.
Working towards a joint company goal energises and motivates employees and management. It is important to understand that strategies are not cast in concrete and should be changed if the environment requires it.
Setting a goal for three-five years’ time that is quite generic, but still measurable, works well. For instance: “By 2028, we want to be the best in our industry,” or: “By 2025, we want to have tripled our profit.” These can be strived for even if the product or service you sell changes to meet the new market requirements.
Running annual strategy workshops to plan only for the 12 months on what needs to be focused on, strategically, then helps the company to work towards that longer-term goal. Taking the key decision-makers to an off-site venue for a day is needed so that the tasks of everyday office life does not distract anyone from this important workshop.
That annual strategy can then be broken into quarterly goals. Because things change so quickly, it’s recommended to only set these one quarter at a time. These can be building blocks that need to be in place to achieve the annual strategic vision. As an example, you might want to have better financials for your company, as a strategic goal. So, in quarter one, the task is to define the requirements of the person you need to hire; quarter two you go about the recruitment process; in quarter three, this person starts and finds their feet; and by the end of quarter four, they should have made an impact on producing accurate annual financials or at least put a process in place.
Tracking these quarterly goals should be done in weekly or fortnightly meetings and kept track of in a clear dashboard showing confidence levels that goals will be achieved by the end of the quarter, so that progress can be continually tracked. At the end of a quarter, the progress is evaluated and new goals for the next quarter are set. At this point, if some major disruption has occurred, the next quarter’s goals can be changed. We all had to do that in March of 2020 when South Africa went into lockdown.
All the people involved in achieving these quarterly goals should be aware of what the goals are, so that everyone can understand the decisions being made and the priorities being set. Daily meetings can be held with the operational people who are implementing the day-to-day tasks that will bring the company closer to their goals.
There is a benefit of having a neutral and independent third party facilitating the annual and quarterly workshops, to help the team get perspective on the business, stay focused during the workshop and deepen insights into strategic thinking principles.
This is a way to help leadership balance the strategic and operational requirements of a business, while still being agile and resilient enough to weather any storm that comes their way.
If you would like to find out more or would be interested in me helping your organisation get these things in place, please send me an e-mail to birgit@grow-za.com.
The GROW web page, https://www.grow.za.com/, has a lot of information on the offerings that GROW has, as well as client references and details on all the GROW coaches.
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