“If you don’t know where you are going, any path will take you there.” – Sioux Proverbs
If you want to kick off 2025 with a focused mindset, ready to seize opportunities and tackle challenges head-on, the time to reflect on business strategy is right now.
As our calendars come to a close, there is a natural pause for reflection. With the year’s accomplishments and challenges fresh in mind, it’s an ideal moment to assess progress, refine strategies, and set clear priorities for the future.
The start of the year will bring renewed enthusiasm, sometimes fuelled by a rested body and mind, fresh hires, or a general desire to improve on the previous year. However, to channel this momentum into productive, focused action, a robust strategy needs to be in place.
A well-crafted strategy sets a clear direction. It ensures everyone in the business is aligned with common goals, boosting collaboration and morale. Without this, businesses risk making reactive decisions, leading to inefficiencies and missed opportunities.
A strong strategy also anticipates challenges. No year is without obstacles, but with a proactive approach, businesses can navigate uncertainties more confidently and avoid being caught off guard by external pressures.
As you plan for the year ahead, efficient resource allocation is key. A strategic approach helps businesses prioritise initiatives, ensuring that time, money, and talent are focused on high-impact areas.
Try these simple exercises to help review and reset for a great year ahead.
Exercise: End of Year Review
1. Grab a notepad and create two columns: POSITIVE and NEGATIVE.
2. Go through your calendar from the last year, looking at every week. For each week, jot down on the pad any people, jobs, activities that triggered peak positive or negative emotions for that month.
3. Once you’ve gone through the past year, rule a line just under the last entry, all the way across the page.
4. Look at your notepad list and underline the following:
a. What 20% of column 1 produced the most powerful peaks?
b. What 20% of column 2 had the greatest negative impact?
5. Below the line, under the positive column write: DO-MORE LIST.
6. Based on the answers, take your “positive” leaders and write down more activities just like them that you can be reproduced next year. Schedule them on your calendar now!
7. Now, take your “negative” leaders, put “DO-NOT-DO LIST” at the top, and put them somewhere you can see them. These are the people, jobs and things you know make you miserable, so make a commitment to yourself not to let them take valuable time from your calendar. Not out of obligation, guilt, FOMO, or any other nonsense.
Exercise: Destination Postcard
This idea comes from Chip Heath and Dan Heath’s book: Switch.
A Destination Postcard is a vivid picture of the near-term future that shows what could be possible.
1. Take a few minutes to quietly think about and write a descriptive narrative of what a successful year looks like. Not just a list of KPIs or financial targets. Those may be included, but what you’re looking for should be more descriptive than that.
2. Now write down the three things that must have happened during the year to have enabled the achievement of this vision? Write down the three specific objectives that were delivered or accomplished.
3. If you are completing this exercise in a group, once everyone is finished writing, ask each person to share their descriptive vision of a great year and their top three things. Capture the actions from each person on a flip chart. You can use check marks if more than one person mentions the same thing.
4. Discuss, debate and agree on the details of the 3-5 key priorities.
5. Then ask: “How will we drive that focus?” Find the one number that the organisation needs to meet or surpass – this is the critical number to make it real. For example, this might be the number of new clients you need to onboard, the number of pineapples you need to harvest, or the percentage of projects delivered in full on time (DIFOT).
To start reflecting on your business strategy and planning for the year ahead, join our free Destination Postcard Workshop on November 21, 2024 at 12:00pm.