The Strategic Plan

Leadership Workshop (3 of 12) – Sharpen the Focus

Leading at Light Speed is a must-have leadership book by Eric Douglas highlighting the 10 Quantum Leaps to build trust, spark innovation, and create a high-performing organization. Chapter 2 is all about Sharpening the Strategic Focus.

A strategic plan shows how to implement your vision and is divided into three parts: goals, objectives and actions.

Once you’ve defined the vision, you need to define the priorities for the organization in the form of goals and objectives. The desired amount of goals is approximately three or four. Any more than four goals can greatly decreases the probability of reaching them. Once the organization has successfully executed on those priorities, then you can introduce more.

Less professional leaders tend to have too many goals and priorities. This dulls people’s energies and saps the focus. One CEO had 14 goals for her company. When asked, she remarked: “It’s important to me that we have a goal that reflects everything we do.” In order to sharpen the focus, priorities need to be established before satisfying everyone else’s projects.

How do you define priorities? If your vision is to expand into new markets, then your goals should reflect that, with related objectives of opening new offices or introducing products that will attract sales in that market. If your vision is to become more vertically integrated in the sources of production, then one goal might be to buy a manufacturing plant. The importance is in the clarity of the priorities. Keep in mind, nothing can be considered a priority if everything is.

Objectives define the initiatives and milestones you need to hit in order to achieve the goals. Actions capture the specific steps, timetables and responsibilities for achieving the objectives.

Senior leaders of an organization should be held more responsible for defining and articulating goals. Leaders need to be held responsible for refining the goals of their department and tieing them together with specific objectives and steps of action. This “cascade” effect enables every manager – and ultimately every employee – to connect what they do to the strategic plan.

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