Every New Year’s Day we wake up with exuberant vivacity at the prospect of
an exhilarating year ahead. This dawn of the New Year often comes with those
resolutions, plans and goals to put into force. It is increasingly becoming
more apparent each year that more people have become weary of New Year’s
resolutions and plans as a possible aid to conduct. Consequently, very few
people actually sit down quietly to craft them. Although this exercise is better
than nothing, it is often rendered ineffective as it does not consider the
individual's big picture. If your goals and plans do not align with your
strategic objectives, then chances of consistently pursuing them will be
minimal, let alone enduring amid obstacles.
Every year, senior executives of many companies spend hours in
strategic planning sessions. These intense, high profile, C-suite chaired
meetings are usually signature events of a company. It is a sign of status to
be present in these meetings, as this is indubitably where the overall
company's strategy is hammered out. The chief purpose of these meetings is to
re-evaluate the strategic objectives of a company, report on what was achieved,
evaluate current projects and how they align to the strategic objectives,
identify the gaps and re-evaluate the strategic roadmap. The success or failure
of a company can often be traced back to the decisions that ensued from these
meetings.
How many people have their own personal strategic planning sessions every
year? Do we ever take time to re-evaluate our own strategic objectives, report
to ourselves on what we have achieved, evaluate our current plans and how they
align to our strategic objectives, identify gaps and institute new plans and
re-evaluate our strategic roadmap? The more coherent we become in our lives,
the higher chances of succeeding in what we wish to become, else the
achievement of our goals is aleatory. Too often incoherence continues to plague
many individuals, with dangling and temperamental plans that are incongruent
with their big picture. Successful companies invariably have two important
elements: Vision and Strategy. Every strategic meeting has to deal with these
key organisational elements. This is a reminiscence of one of Steve Jobs’ famous
quotes “If today were your last day, would you do what you are about to do?”
This question is less about action than about value. In other words, is your
plan aligned to your vision and adding value to the execution of your strategy. If
this year was your last year, would you be pursuing the plans and goals (if
any) that you are currently pursuing?
Richard Boyatzis in his book "Resonant Leadership" proposes what
he dubs, "Intentional change model". This model gives a direction of
how to follow through your plans and goals with effectiveness and
efficiency. The model rests upon five key concepts: Ideal self, real
self, gaps and plan, experimentation and finally support. The first step is to
identify your ideal self, or what can be described as living in your perfect
future. This is invariably your vision. Your vision articulates your full
self-expression, consequently, it eliminates any temporal states that you may
be tempted to want to be. Vision speaks about the end state, the person you
aspire to have been at end of your life.
This first step is the hardest,
as it requires true and honest evaluation of desires.
The second step of
the model is to identify your real self. This is really your current state. It
goes without saying that, this also requires an honest evaluation of yourself,
your present true state.
Thirdly, identify the gaps between your ideal self and
your real self. This involves identifying your strengths, which denotes the
similarity between your ideal self and your real self. Furthermore, identify
the gaps. Gaps signify the difference between your ideal self and your real
self. These differences are important and they bring light to things which you
need to focus on in order to perfect them. A creation of a plan to address
these gaps is vital.
The fourth step in the model is experimentation. This
means practicing and adjusting your behaviour to align it with your ideal self.
Lastly, support. Support means finding a person or a group that can be
supportive to your learning and journey.
