Business planning and strategy setting is not a one time activity that you tick off your list as “done” and file for future reference. To be effective, your business has to continually explore and adapt to the environments in which it operates.

Where do you start?

For you to achieve success, you need to develop a mindset for you and your business around thinking and planning that ensures you attend to all of the things that you need to, all of the time. Easy, right?

With the plethora of things business owners and leaders need to react and adapt to on a daily basis this can feel overwhelming and unachievable. Actually, it’s not as difficult as it might sound.

The following model helps you to define a framework to continually improve your strategy based on adopting six key leadership abilities: 

1. Anticipate

It’s so easy to focus on what’s directly ahead; but that creates blind spots and we can easily ignore what’s in our “peripheral vision”. That makes us vulnerable to rivals who detect and act on ambiguous signals. Join the leaders who anticipate:

•          Search beyond your current boundaries

•          Look for game-changing information at the periphery

•          Build wide networks to help you scan the horizon 

2. Challenge

“Conventional wisdom” is very tempting. Let’s face it, many of us rely on it for our day to day decisions. However, critical thinkers question everything and leaders who challenge tend to:

•          Reframe problems to understand root causes

•          Challenge current beliefs and mind-sets

•          Uncover hypocrisy, manipulation and bias

 3. Interpret

Ambiguity is unsettling and faced with it, many of us rush to judgment using tried and tested solutions.  Consider holding fire; gather and synthesise information from many sources before you develop your viewpoint.

Strategic and savvy sense makers:

•          Seek to understand patterns from multiple data points

•          Engage others (inside and external to the business) to weigh, filter, and develop insights

•          Check for decision biases and test multiple hypotheses

 4. Decide

We can all fall prey to “analysis paralysis”. It’s easy to do, especially in chaotic times. Strategic leaders tend to adopt a consistent approach and are disciplined in arriving at a ”good enough” position by:

•          Carefully framing the decision and approach

•          Balancing speed, rigour, quality, and agility

•          Making commitments even with incomplete information when they aren’t taking significant risks with their time, money or other resources.

 5. Align

We’re unlikely to achieve perfect consensus; it can be risky try and pursue, too.  By fostering open dialogue and engaging key stakeholders, especially when views diverge, an alignment-focused leader can:

•          Understand what drives diverse agendas and is hidden

•          Ensure tough issues are surfaced to pinpoint misalignment

•          Provide a compelling strategic vision

 6. Learn

Easy for us to overlook as we rush on to the next opportunity or issue, the strategic leader embraces and encourage feedback, viewing success and failure as sources of critical insight and learning.  We could all follow suit and:

•          Encourage and exemplify transparent, rigorous debriefs

•          Stay agile and course-correct quickly if off track

•          Celebrate success and the right kind of failures

Need a steer with your approach to strategic planning? Want to develop your leadership skills to achieve greater success? Get in touch for a confidential, no obligation chat steve@askingbetterquestions.co.uk.