Strategy: Not Just for Organizations

During a recent strategic planning session, I was explaining how to evaluate the alignment between your personal values and the values of the organization that you work for. Through this discussion, I realized that many participants were having a hard time assessing their alignment because they hadn’t spent much time on personal strategic planning.  I thought if the leaders hadn’t thought much about it, then most of the other employees probably hadn’t either. Here’s the first problem with that: how can you engage employees in strategy implementation when they don’t have a personal reference point on how they fit into it? Second, from a talent and leadership development perspective, how can you find and development great people if there isn’t a good understanding of the foundational reasons why certain employees are “great fits” for the organization? Lastly, how can the company retain and keep employees engaged if they are never asked to share what is important to them and why?

I believe that the strategic planning process can be very empowering for both organizations and individuals (personally and professionally), when both types are conducted and aligned. It creates a vision for where the company/person wants to be in the future and maps out the steps on how to get there….together. It creates cohesion between individuals, teams and the entire organization while providing clarity which can be helpful in times of confusing change and transition. A good strategy has a clear and concise mission, vision, values statement and S.M.A.R.T. goals (specific, measurable, attainable, realistic, timely) that focus on the next 3-5 years.

If you haven’t spent much time thinking about what is important to you or you haven’t asked your potential or current employees the same, here are a few suggestions and ideas to start the process:

1. Create a vision board. I am a visual person and need to see, feel, and meditate over visuals that resonate with me. Pinterest is also a great new tool for creating vision boards. From this exercise, write a one or two sentence statement that summarizes these visuals. Ask potential candidates about their vision: where do you see themselves in 3-5 years?

2. List your top five values. Creativity, freedom, health, success, security, ambition, adventure, love, hope, happiness. This is harder than it looks. Start with a brainstorming of all values important to you – 30 is great. Narrow it down to 10, then 5, then list in order of importance. Compare those values to the values of the company that you work for. Are there similarities? Differences? Ask potential candidates to list a few of their top values and give explanations on why they are important to them.

3.Create 3-5 large and broad goals. Review the information that you have put together so far from your vision and values and create areas of focus and development. For example, one might read: to explore and research how my personal top value of creativity can be aligned as an asset to assist my organization’s value of innovation.

Think about how you can incorporate these activities into your current practices. For example, these exercises could become great tools to add to the employee evaluation process. They create more value by providing information about personal needs and desires which creates an employee-empowered process. It also sends a strong message to staff that their fulfillment, happiness and success are what make the organization a success.

By Tammy Jordan, Chief Empowerment Officer of Leader Consulting Group