Two Ways to Be More Strategic

Juggling_230pxIf your team is like most, you are focused on the pressures and deadlines of today. You are juggling a lot.

When you try to get ahead, you often drop a ball or two because of those unanticipated setbacks that throw you off balance. And with no method of staying ahead of the change that is just around the corner, the team can only do its best to survive and react.

What to do about it?

You must be intentional. You must make a choice, dig your heels in, and decide to be more strategic about your day, week, month and year.

And if you are part of a team, you must have a shared understanding of the vision and plan.

TWO SIMPLE WAYS YOU CAN BE MORE STRATEGIC RIGHT NOW:

1) Review the team’s vision.

What are you all about? What do you want to be known for? What three big problems do you solve? How do you solve them?

Even if these things are clear to you, it is rare that everyone on the team feels that way. Work through these questions in your next team meeting and capture the results on the whiteboard. Let it be iterative and ongoing, and you’ll see a lot of team progress over time.

2) Keep the strategic plan in front of you.

What is the team’s #1 goal? What are the four to five major “buckets” or categories that help us achieve that goal?

Be sure to develop an individual, specific plan for yourself that supports the overall categories. You must feel clear that what you are doing each day has a strong line of sight to the #1 goal everyone is working toward.

You can stop juggling so many balls in the air. When you slow down enough to be strategic instead of reactive, you will find yourself with fewer recurring issues to juggle. Who doesn’t want that?

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