A year in review exercise can help align our short term objectives with our long term vision. A worthy goal for business leaders.
Strategy
Strategy and Tactics aren’t in competition
Being a strategic thinker, I’ve always loved the story that described the difference between leadership and management by using a metaphor of a team fighting their way through the jungle. Where the manager uses tactics to enable the team and the leader uses strategy to set the direction. In truth you need both.
Design thinking breathes life into strategic planning
Too often strategic planning is something people do periodically. They focus on making plans and then put them away in drawers. Design thinking, with its use of observable experimentation and bias to action, takes them out of the drawer and turns them into initiatives instead of just plans.
Taking your advice is your customer’s decision not yours
You need to respect your customers decisions, even when/if you don’t agree with them. There is no such thing as one true path – and only fanatics think their way is the only way. Most importantly, part of being a confident professional is that you have the capability to work within this type of framework.
Are your business goals outcomes or objectives, or both?
Measure both, even though you are looking for different things and do it different ways. We use metrics and KPIs to measure the performance of outcomes. We often track and evaluate how we execute on objectives.