Three Pitfalls That Will Thwart Your Strategic Progress
The other day, as we were finishing a strategic planning project with a client, one of the team members asked, "What pitfalls do we need to consider as we move forward?” - What could derail our strategic planning work?
Three pitfalls came to mind:
Pitfall #1. Urgency over importance.
There are so many things vying for our attention. For some, our work is to help people in urgent situations. However, if our attention is focused on the urgent, we never deal with the important. So, to do our very best with the urgent matters of our work, we must set aside time to make sure we are tending to what is important. (Note: Sometimes, the urgency is a false sense of urgency driven more by culture than by the actual situation. And sometimes urgency is a true emergency.) When we learn to balance working on the urgent and the important, that sets us up for greater impact long-term.
Pitfall #2. Focus on everything.
Similarly, when we focus on everything at once, we focus on nothing. That is why strategic planning is so important. It tells us what we are going to focus on for the next three to five years. That intentional focus helps ensure that we align resources, time, and energy toward specific impacts. Use your plan, your mission, and your vision to maintain focus. Otherwise, you get spread too thin (or thinner than you already are), and that is a risk to sustainability.
Pitfall #3. Work in fits and spurts.
If we only do the work when we feel like it or when circumstances are "right,” we won't get very far. Strategy work needs consistent effort (or even reminders). I've written before about the 20-mile march; it’s more effective to set a consistent cadence for your planning work. For instance, your team could commit to meeting once a month to check in on progress, or providing a meaningful update on the plan to the board each month, etc. That regular cadence provides accountability and a time to step out of the urgent to give focus.
So, if you want to see success with your plan, do the opposite:
1. Create a balance of working on the important and the urgent.
2. Use your plan to give you focus on what you will do and won't do.
3. Create a consistent cadence for checking in on your plan.
Clients who do these three things are much farther along with their plan and their impact after three years. Change doesn't happen spontaneously—most change happens with consistent effort applied over time toward a core focus in the midst of the ups and downs of daily life.