{"id":13,"date":"2015-01-09T23:14:35","date_gmt":"2015-01-09T23:14:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lmja.com\/blog\/?p=13"},"modified":"2015-01-10T20:39:08","modified_gmt":"2015-01-10T20:39:08","slug":"can-strategic-planning-make-your-job-easier","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.lmja.com\/blog\/can-strategic-planning-make-your-job-easier\/","title":{"rendered":"Can Strategic Planning Make Your Job Easier?"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"strategy<\/a>Mention Strategic Planning in a meeting and you\u2019re liable to hear lots of groans! For many companies and organizations, strategic planning involves weeks of research, competitive analysis, meetings, budgeting and planning. Besides all that work, strategic planning conjures up the idea that we have to KNOW the future. Or at least take a good guess. Good luck with that. Besides the fear of making the wrong decision, thinking too far in the future just isn\u2019t practical anymore. Thanks to technology and the world we live in, most businesses see so much change that they are revising their strategic plans every 18 months. So, what if you just plan for the year? Make it simple. Here\u2019s how.<\/p>\n

First, Analyze. <\/strong>What has worked in the past? What has not worked? Are your employees fully trained? What areas of expertise are lacking? Decide what your strategy is for the year.<\/p>\n

Focus on the issues at hand<\/strong>. What are the initiatives in your area that will have the most impact on the organization as a whole? These are the ones you want to focus on. Do your employees have the expertise to carry out the initiatives as planned? Can your area be more productive given more expertise?<\/p>\n

Start with the end in mind. <\/strong>Where do you want to be by December 2015? If you know what progress needs to be made, it\u2019s easier to schedule check points throughout the year.<\/p>\n

Make a check list.<\/strong> Assuming there are goals for the department and the individual employees, make a list of what needs to be accomplished. Incorporate change management and leadership development training to transform your area to a higher performing organization.<\/p>\n

Schedule it. <\/strong>Work it out on paper. What is the initiative? What results are you expecting? And what tools are needed to get there? When you break it down bit by bit, you\u2019ll recognize whether or not your plan is feasible.<\/p>\n

Review performance. <\/strong>Meet quarterly, or more often if necessary, to make sure the initiative hasn\u2019t hit a roadblock. Don\u2019t assume that you\u2019ll know when that happens. Too often, organizations learn in September or October that the initiative they thought was humming along, hit a roadblock in June. Now, months have gone by without progress.<\/p>\n

Keep it simple. <\/strong>You can tackle a lot, and be disappointed in your results. Or you can take the top issues and get results. Your goal is to get results, so that the next year, you can focus on other issues.<\/p>\n

Need some help with starting or updating a strategic plan? Leadership development? Dealing with communication and conflict within teams? We can help. Give Leah M. Joppy & Associates a call at 301-670-0051 or email us at leah@lmja.com<\/a> \u2013 we\u2019d love to help.<\/p>\n

Try our tip.<\/strong> Read on for an easy tip<\/a> to keep you focused on your strategy and get results!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Mention Strategic Planning in a meeting and you\u2019re liable to hear lots of groans! For many companies and organizations, strategic planning involves weeks of research, competitive analysis, meetings, budgeting and planning. Besides all that work, strategic planning conjures up the idea that we have to KNOW the future. Or at least take a good guess. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[6,8],"tags":[9],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.lmja.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.lmja.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.lmja.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.lmja.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.lmja.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/www.lmja.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18,"href":"http:\/\/www.lmja.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13\/revisions\/18"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.lmja.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.lmja.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.lmja.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}