FAST FORWARD

GOT TIME FOR TODAY?

I don’t know about you, but it doesn’t seem possible that it’s November already. Wasn’t it just January last week? It feels like being in a time warp. Why is that?

Whether you work in a small business or a Fortune 500 enterprise—your work projects, schedules, deadlines, and business forecasts thrust you fast forward—relentlessly pushing you weeks and months ahead, years even.

Well then, is it any wonder that hardly anyone's got time for today?

IN TODAY'S MOMENT FOR TOMORROW

The focus is always on tomorrow and beyond. But it all has to start with today. Tomorrow’s only as good as how well you take care of business today. Completing projects that are well planned with schedules, milestones, and completion dates is just part of everyone’s job description. Project teams confidently rally to prioritize tasks, maximize productivity, and overcome challenges—ensuring the success of their projects. Although the constant motion of completing tasks and projects creates forward momentum across timelines, it also entrenches you in the status quo that keeps your business humming.

The holy grail of any business is to seek growth and relevancy in the future while sustaining success in the present. Achieving that perfect balance can be somewhat elusive and it's where most organizations begin to stumble a bit, when they're compelled to strategize and plan for the company’s future—the coming-soon attractions.

Setting up business goals that are more strategic while juggling all the minutiae of today requires facing two big and looming questions.

• What do you invest in?
• Where do you place your bets?
  

WHAT MAKES YOU STAND OUT?

There is no crystal ball for business managers to perfectly predict the future. But business management teams do have the creative thinking skills to sketch an imaginative look at the future and create achievable future business scenarios that may involve new products, enhanced services, or new markets for the company.

Grounded in today and looking inward, the next questions encompass the way your business operates and how it can grow.

• What do your customers like about working with you and how does that define your company?
• What do you do better than anyone else in the market and how can you leverage that?
• What are some of your more difficult challenges and how can you turn them into opportunities?

MOUNTAIN CLIMBING NOT REQUIRED

• Why does your company want a change?
  
• How can you turn that need for change into a business strategy?
  

No doubt, strategic planning is one of the big guilt trips of business. Everyone knows you should do it, but the process can be not only intimidating and expensive, but also extremely time consuming. And time is inconveniently scarce when you're under a barrage of daily tasks crucial to your business sustainability.

Strategic planning does not need to be a go-to-the-mountain-top experience for epic business insights and revelations. To help you understand your business better and rationalize your future business strategy, simply ask yourself the following questions that can help you chip away at the day-to-day scramble of right now.

IT'S THAT TIME OF YEAR

Whether you come up with one or multiple business strategies that you want to accomplish as a company, organizations inevitably get drawn in and slip into the day-to-day world of “taking care of business.”  Yes, today is vitally important to your business success—but, planning and positioning your business for the future is equally as important.

Sometime in the next two weeks—and certainly by next month—tens of thousands of businesses, large and small, will have begun their strategic planning process for next year. According to Forbes Leadership Forum contributor, Greg Bustin: Whether companies operate on a fiscal year or not, the period between Labor Day and Thanksgiving is often when they establish plans for the upcoming year.

DON'T DRAG IT OUT

Time is of the essence, so keep the group focused on the future, and play big!

Business strategy planning sessions have a time window of six weeks where people are the most enthusiastic about being involved. “Making a difference” and “having a voice” are great catalysts for participation and investing time and effort in crafting business strategies for the company.

Soon thereafter, however, motivation and commitment begin to ebb. Those strategy planning sessions lose their original luster, and participants begin to lose interest in them—with the whole effort predictably headed down a dead-end course.

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