By Michael Gidlewski

Most people are hesitant to plan. Their biggest fear is that setting a rigid plan will hinder their ability to respond quickly.

I have always been a proponent that this is precisely the time you need to be proactive with a strategy. Because if you don’t know which road to take, any road will get you where you want to go or maybe not, and then it may be too late to react and turn the ship around. Having no strategy or plan to implement a strategy is like sailing a ship without a rudder.

A good strategic plan doesn’t lock you into a fixed course. It allows you to adjust your sails and your course, as the winds of change blow through the economy. Strategy is the process of planning and thinking about how to position your company and allocate your scarce resources to optimize your success moving forward. In the current environment, you need to have a strategy to thrive; otherwise, our only motivation is survival.

Strategic development:

• crystallizes thinking to be more proactive and gain greater clarity of priorities
• creates a sustainable value proposition to gain a competitive advantage
• develops shared vision, values, and guiding principles
• builds and sustains high performance over the long haul
• develops a system to inspire and motivate change
• communicates strategy to stakeholders to gain support for the plan
• ensures successful implementation of desired major changes.
• creates a plan of action to implement the plan and track results

The basic goal of any strategy is simple enough: to win the customer’s preference and create a sustainable competitive advantage, while leaving sufficient money on the table for shareholders. It defines a business’s direction and positions it to move in that direction.

Why, then, do so many strategies fail?

Few understand that a good strategic development process also requires the utmost attention to the hows of executing the strategy. A robust strategy is not a compilation of numbers of what amounts to an astrological forecast when companies extrapolate numbers year by year for the next 10 years. Its substance and detail must come from the minds of the people who are closest to the action and who understand their markets, their resources, and their strengths and weaknesses.

A strategic development plan must be an action plan that business leaders can rely on to reach their business objectives. In creating it, you as a leader have to ask whether and how your organization can do the things that are needed to achieve its goals.

Having the right tools can fortify your business against the competition and give you the competitive edge with your customers.

Click here to get a free Strategic Planning Springboard from Achievement Unlimited. Click here to get a Strategic Planning Action Kit from Achievement Unlimited Limited.

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Michael Gidlewski is President of West Chester-based Achievement Unlimited, Inc., as well as a growth catalyst and motivational speaker. He works with motivated business owners and entrepreneurs to clearly define the elements of what they dearly want their businesses and lives to look like, then helps them connect all the moving parts that make up those visions to consistent action and habits. Michael can be reached at 610-793-6609 or via e-mail at michael@achievable.com.

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