The beginning of the year is a good time to look over your Strategy and give it a little refresh.
The pace of change in our world seems to increase exponentially on a regular basis. This can frustrate a lot of people when they begin a Strategy effort. “What’s the point,” they may say, “the future is so unpredictable!”
While this can be true, a solid Strategy will:
- Clarify your Mission and the difference you want to make
- Set your Ideal Vision for the future
- Establish Three-Five Strategic Goals
- Identify relevant SWOTs: Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats that are relevant to implementing your Strategic Goals
In a Strategy Refresh, you can briefly revisit each of these items.
- Your Mission probably has not changed. If not, reaffirm and Onward!
- Maybe you want to update your Vision. If so, great. This does not have to be a long process.
- Are your Strategic Goals still relevant? Most of them probably are. If you need to change them for any reason, go for it. It is more likely that you may want to tweak them based on what you have learned in the past year.
- It is likely that some of your SWOTs have changed – either due to internal changes (i.e., staffing, finances) or external changes. Make sure that you identify these changes and feed them into your implementation process.
A strategy refresh is a healthy standard operating procedure to help make sure that you are still on the right path to your vision and mission. It will help assure that you maximize your Mission Impact.
