Whenever I work with a group regarding strategic planning, I find the words vision and mission often need definition. Perhaps some of the confusion comes from faith-based organizations using the word mission to mean what a commercial organization often calls vision. Simply put, vision is a description of how your organization expects to improve the […]
Tag Archives: SMART Plans
Last month, I discussed how too narrow a focus on metrics and results can have unintended consequences that impact management’s anticipated outcomes. Employee disengagement, customer complaints, and material shortages can impede results if management does not take a broad enough view of the organization. Enterprise management is a system. Often, managers think they can treat […]
Times of diminished product demand are a test of management and leadership prowess. The sustainability of a business relies on both identifying new market opportunities and establishing a cost structure that maintains liquidity. Too often, urgency and a distorted sense of time scarcity create an opposing duality that Chinese Zen Buddhists called Yin and Yang. […]
As 2012 comes to a close, we brace ourselves for the media highlight reels and the perfunctory New Year’s Resolutions. So often when I talk to people about resolutions, I see rolling eyeballs and shaking heads. At least one of the reasons that resolutions are abandoned so quickly is that people don’t know how to […]
In a difficult times, it is natural for organizations to focus more closely on achieving revenue requirements and critical objectives and to place business planning on the “back burner.” If these reactive periods continue over an extended period of time, inefficiencies and missed opportunities can ensue; not to mention exhaustion. Taking a few hours with […]