As a business leader facing the daily challenges of generating profit, securing new customers, launching new initiatives and leading your team, it’s understandable that you, or the senior management team, may feel there is little time to spend on developing strategic plans for the future.
Perhaps you’ve already taken time to develop a mission statement, strategy and vision for the company. But what good are those if they sit neglected and forgotten on the company website or in a dusty folder, detached from what the senior management team and your people are focusing on every day?
Time spent planning, developing and communicating future strategies shouldn’t be seen as dislocated from the day-to-day issues. Longer term aims should be an integral element of daily leadership and management: shaping business operations, short-term priorities, choices and decisions.
This ensures an effective and practical balance between short-term commercial aims and longer term strategic objectives, and that your business pursues a clear strategic direction and purpose.
The trick, of course, is to get the balance right, and to ensure that your strategic aims and sustainable growth strategies are not forgotten among the daily and weekly pressures.