As you wrap up your fiscal year and look at 2024, take a step back and consider what strategic planning means to your company. There is an art and science to understanding strategic planning in the current business environment, envisioning a desired future, and determining effective ways to achieve that end state. Leaders use strategic planning to:

• Understand internal and external situations
• Develop solutions to problems
• Direct, coordinate, and synchronize their actions and decisions
• Prioritize efforts
• Allocate resources and manage risks.

In its purest form, strategic planning helps leaders to be proactive in achieving their goals versus reactive to their environment. This process helps you to determine how to move from the now to a more desirable future state while also shaping what the future holds by identifying potential opportunities and roadblocks along the way.

Strategic planning is always evolving. While it may start as an iteration of the organizational planning process, it does not stop with the release of a strategy map. During preparation and execution, the CEO and senior executives continuously refine the organization’s annual strategy to account for changes in the business environment. In some circumstances, CEOs and senior executives may determine that the strategic priorities and goals no longer apply to the business environment. In these instances, instead of modifying the organizational strategy, CEOs must reframe the problem and develop a new strategic priority or goal.

Strategic planning and mapping are critical processes to conduct with your team for long-term success, and the journey is equally as important as the destination.

The Leadership & Coaching Center (LCC) provides expert facilitators and strategists to help teams prepare for the near and long-term using the LCC Six-Step Strategic Planning Process.

Contact LCC@isiwdc.com for more information.