Planning – Know what you don’t know
There is a fabulous read by Marshall Goldsmith titled: What Got You Here, Won’t Get You There. As the title suggests you need to change what you do if you are seeking to achieve different results. Therefore if you are business planning to be even more successful in 2016, you will need to do things differently than you did them this year.
So how do you go about reviewing the accomplishments and gaps in order to create a well informed plan that identifies areas where your focus of change will yield the greatest results? And how can you do this without a lot of time to spare?
The following process is simple, takes little time, yet is a powerful reflection tool which in turn will feed your strategic business planning process this January:
- Make a list of the following 13 business functions/ areas
- Communication, Customer service, Operations, Team work, Environment, Cash flow, Marketing, Work flow, Systems, Client retention, Growth, Quality, Branding (reputation)
- Next to each area, rate your level of satisfaction in a percentage score between 0-100%
- Next to the score, indicate level of importance 1-4 (4 being most important)
- Next to importance, mark a realistic timeline to improve in that area
Through this quick reflection exercise, you will clearly recognize the areas that need to become part of your business plan for this year. The level of importance to your goals informs the order of priority. The timeline clarifies the duration of attention for the year.
When you have certainty about the areas of your business that need to change and are committed to honing in with persistence to addressing those improvements, you will get to where you want to go. If you would like a copy of a visual tool for this process, feel free to send us an email to resources@business-sanctuary.com.
May this clarity be a strong foundation to guide your planning process for 2016.
To a prosperous and exciting New Year!
