Human beings have no control over what challenges life may throw at them but they have control over what their responses should be. When a new period begins, we are hoping to possess beautiful things the year may be loaded with. However, the unexpected are smuggled in to make the baggage become heavier. This life’s reality emphasises the fact that there are two sides to every situation and circumstance – the good and the not-so-good sides.
The above being the case, it is therefore the duty of every purpose-driven man and woman to develop skills suitable to make him or her appropriate the good and as well respond decisively to reduce the impact of the not-so-good on his or her wellbeing. To survive and thrive in any environment, it is your duty to develop necessary skills required to stand up and stand tall. It is not when you should start strategy implementation for a new year that you should be thinking of how the new year should look like. The cause for a new period ought to have been articulated before the commencement date, and the consequences and effects well understood. But for the sake of those of us who are not well equipped with strategic thinking skills, I will say it is not too late to do something about what you want to accomplish this year.
You have to envision where you want to be. Every purpose-driven individual or organisation has a way of taking time to step aside to examine his future or the future of the organisation he manages. This is a very healthy step to take because doing so will help you understand your overall target and the reason (purpose) for your existence in the new period. By envisioning your ideal situation or best case scenario, you can renew and re-commit to excellence. It is this envisioning that lead you to goal setting. You may need to seek help from a consultant or trainer to get this done correctly. If your goals are clear and are doable, they not only serve as blueprint for action, they also serve as its energy. If you are able to see the end from the beginning, your goal for the year may appear so gigantic that you begin to exercise fear that you may not be able to accomplish it. A good way to overcome such fears is by making use of short-win strategy. Here, divide the big goal to short achievements which when they add together will amount to the overall big goal (or higher than) that you have set for the year.
Accomplishment of goals or establishing a new cause should start with the end in mind. This requires clear visioning, goal setting, strategic planning, clearly envisaging possible and probable distractions and consciously dealing with the identified distractions. A sure way to get this done is by codifying your thought processes in charted writing. The codification will end with the preparation of what is known as a ‘Work Plan’ that will cover your activities for the entire period you have in mind.
However, you may not find it so easy to jump into preparing a work plan if you have not first developed your personal or corporate growth plan. The development of a growth plan starts with objectively knowing who you are and where you are, what skills do you already possess and what skills do you need to develop. For instance a personal growth plan skills may include identification of leadership skills that you need to develop. These skills may be, say, how to find a vision, how to establish team values, identify expectations, nurture collaborations, build trust, make meaningful decisions, manage conflicts, set norms, solve problem efficiently, or a need to train for competency. The identifiable areas are not limited to the ones mentioned here.
Don’t overlook strategic action plan and work plan preparation. Systems and processes may need major reappraisal. Technological change or weakened capacity may force you to embrace new line of thinking and decisions. Your prepared Strategic Action Plan should be a systematic, documented process for deciding key decisions that you as a person or an organization must get right in order to succeed over a period. It should consist of a set of carefully-framed statements that describe the purpose and conducts together with the specific strategies designed to achieve the targets set for each of the statements. On the other hand, the Work-Plan is an offshoot of the Strategic Action Plan which is more detailed and should clearly indicate the overall objective of the cause, business, organization, or your personal activity. Both the Strategic Action Plan and the Work Plan should be prepared in tabular form. It removes ambiguity and gives better clarity to everyone that will run with the vision if it is done in this manner.
Ola Emmanuel is a business planning and cooperative consultant
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