Hope is Not a Business Strategy

Hope is not a business strategy!

It is end of year, which means the season of planning: Annual Operating Plan (AOP), Strategic Plan (STRAP) and Management Resource Review (MRR). The outcome for each of these reviews and plans is to set the goals and initiatives for the next year for your company, division, product and individuals. As these goals are communicated, please remember one important piece of advice – Hope is not a business strategy!

In order for goals to be achieved and results obtained you have to align daily activities, strategic projects and the AOP/STRAP goals as they apply to you. This can be done by realizing through remembering two important things: create priority for meaningful work and manage your time diligently.

Everyone has fires that occur, urgent messages that need to be addressed and daily grind activities that add little value to the bottom line, but need to be completed. In order to create meaning in your job and to ensure that goals are met, meaningful goals must be addressed each week, if not every day. This is work that directly relates to your AOP, STRAP, MRR and personal development goals. Setting aside time to help advance your position, your division, your products and your company help maintain focus on what is truly important and what will move the business forward. It concentrates efforts on the items that need attention and maintains the vision of what is to come. This concentration helps achieve goals actively, not idly hoping that you meet them when the end of the year comes. Beyond achieving goals, this concentration helps create personal meaning and improves quality of output towards the most impactful objectives.

Time management, is not just a theory to create highly effective people, but should be the application strategy for creating results. Time management in its simplest form is just the effective strategy of prioritization and steadfast concentration on goals. At a minimum, one should take the three step process to ensure goals/vision and daily activities are in alignment, 1) Set plan, 2) Check on Progress, and 3) Review Progress. As simple as it sounds, most people don’t take the time to monitor their status towards their goals or the parties involved necessary to achieve those goals.

Going into the next year, make the plan to create priority for meaningful work and manage your time effectively, because without this prioritization at the end of the year your HOPE business strategy would stand for “Hold On, Pain Exists.”

-thePonderingNick