Near year’s end, what areas shape your focus for strategy success in the coming year? Reflecting on my corporate strategic planning days, we could be facing any number of strategy activities in late December. Sometimes we controlled the focus; other times, the focus was thrust upon us. No matter where you are in your process, though, Brainzooming has resources to help your strategy success.
Preparing for a Major Strategy Launch Event
Late December often found us preparing for a two-thousand-person conference in Las Vegas with two audiences. We’d introduce and update our strategy with the company’s sales and operations teams in the first two days. Several hundred customers would then join for the event’s final two days. With the customers joining, we shifted the content focus to an educational industry conference.
Facing a similar major launch and communications push?
Download Fast Forward, our guide to developing your launch game plan.
Preparing to Engage Implementation Teams
When our plan was completed and budgeted (but we weren’t producing a major conference), we were able a few years to prepare to implement our strategic plan. In that case, the push was to be ready to implement ASAP after the new year started.
Getting ready to begin implementing your plan?
Diving Deeper into a Bigger Strategic Planning Role
When we were taking on a big reorganization, I was waiting around in late December to learn what my role would be. On December 20, the company’s president appeared in my office with a promotion to direct the company’s strategic market planning. That year, I was looking for a comprehensive guide to strategy that could help me think through developing our new approach to strategic planning.
Want to sharpen your strategy skills, no matter your organization’s size?
Our Strategy for Success course is the perfect choice. It offers an actionable approach to developing and implementing strategy that you can readily bring to your organization.
Starting a New Plan
We didn’t start strategic planning at any one time of the year. Often, the company launched new strategy development cycles when there was a major business event or pressure. One year, we launched a corporate strategy development initiative in January that led to a huge acquisition six months later. Another year, in the face of a bad economy and too much debt, our focus was on reworking corporate strategy on the fly while trying to keep growth initiative front-and-center for most of the organization.
Wondering what type of planning you need to do?
This Brainzooming article highlights three different types of plans that might all be going on at the same time. And if you want to make strategic planning fun, Brainzooming is definitely the resource for ideas to make strategy engaging!
Proven Resources, No Matter Where You Are on Strategy
Any time of the year, Brainzooming is here with resources to simplify developing strategy and implementing it successfully. And, as a year-end offer, our Strategy for Success course is on sale for 2020. Act before January 10, 2020 to save money AND improve your strategy and performance for years to come! – Mike Brown
