Strategy, and S.T.U.P.I.D vs. S.M.A R T. Companies and Goals

You have a choice: you can be STUPID, or you can be SMART. Here is how a STUPID business operates:

Strategy is missing in action
There are too few (or no) measures
Unclear, or no real goals
Plans are not followed through to completion
Internal systems are non-existent – and your business is...
Dead on arrival!!!

What you really need is a S.M.A.R.T business:

Strategy is in place
Measures exist and are tied to strategy
Accurate time frames are present
Resources are identified and assigned; Reserves are established and ready to respond to changes and opportunities as they arise
Tactics are aligned with strategy...


With S.M.A.R.T.E.R. Goals:

Specific
Measurable
Attainable
Realistic
Timely
Evaluate
Revise

Specific - A specific goal has a much greater chance of being accomplished than a general goal. To set a specific goal you must answer the six "W" questions:

Who: Who is involved?
What: What do I want to accomplish?
Where: Identify a location.
When: Establish a time frame.
Which: Identify requirements and constraints.
Why: Specific reasons, purpose or benefits of accomplishing the goal.

EXAMPLE: A general goal would be, "Get in shape." But a specific goal would be, "Join a health club and work out 3 days a week."



Measurable - Establish concrete criteria for measuring progress toward the attainment of each goal you set. When you measure your progress, you stay on track, reach your target dates, and experience the exhilaration of achievement that spurs you on to the continued effort required to reach your goal.

To determine if your goal is measurable, ask questions such as ... How much? How many? How will I know when it is accomplished?

Attainable - When you identify goals that are most important to you, you begin to figure out ways you can make them come true. You develop the attitudes, abilities, skills, and financial capacity to reach them. You begin seeing previously overlooked opportunities to bring yourself closer to achieving your goals.

You can attain almost any goal you set when you plan your steps wisely, and establish a time frame that allows you to carry out those steps. Goals that may have seemed far away and out of reach eventually move closer and become attainable, not because your goals shrink, but because you grow and expand to match them. When you list your goals you build your self-image. You see yourself as worthy of these goals, and develop the traits and personality that allow you to achieve them.

Realistic - To be realistic, a goal must represent an objective toward which you are both willing and able to work. A goal can be both high, and realistic; you are the only one who can decide just how high your goal should be. But be sure that every goal represents substantial progress. A high or ‘stretch’ goal is frequently easier to reach than a low one, because a low goal exerts low motivational force. Some of the hardest jobs you ever accomplished actually seem easy simply because they were a labor of love.

Your goal is probably realistic if you truly believe that it can be accomplished. Additional ways to know if your goal is realistic is to determine if you have accomplished anything similar in the past, or ask yourself what conditions would have to exist to accomplish this goal.

Timely - A goal should be grounded within a time frame. With no time frame tied to it there's no sense of urgency. If you want to lose 10 lbs, when do you want to lose it by? "Someday" won't work. But if you anchor it within a timeframe, "by May 1st", then you've set your unconscious mind into motion to begin working on the goal.

“T” can also stand for Tangible - A goal is tangible when you can experience it with one of the senses, that is, taste, touch, smell, sight or hearing. When your goal is tangible, you have a better chance of making it specific and measurable, and thus attainable. You should also add two more actions; Evaluate, and Revise (to make your goals S.M.A.R.T.E.R.). You should always be testing your strategy and your tactics, and revising them as needed.
The surest sign of a bad strategy, one that is very much less likely to succeed, is one that proceeds forward, like a racehorse down the track with blinders on, looking neither left nor right, but simply straight ahead. If you are not constantly scanning your environment, watching your competition, testing and adjusting your course, you will not be successful over the long haul.

Long-term success means taking advantage of your opportunities, and distributing your scarce resources in a manner that is most likely to ensure repeated success. A strategic plan with clear and measurable goals provides your business with a clear view of what the purposes and objectives of your company are. The formulation of strategy forces you to examine the prospect of change in the foreseeable future, to set goals, and prepare for change, rather than to wait passively until the market forces you to change – and by then it will probably be too late.

Creating a workable strategy forces you to examine and understand the “worlds”, both internal and external, in which you exist and are trying to do business. By understanding your environment, you put yourself in a position to be able to react wisely to changes as they occur – or even better, before they occur – simply because you know your customers, their environment, and their likely needs and wants, now and in the future.

You would think that anyone who is in business would understand that simple truth, but amazingly, the vast majority of people who are in business, especially on-line, really have very little sense of what their customers are doing, feeling, or needing; and even less understanding of what their competitors are up to.

Strategy is all about guiding the outcome of individual effort and events to produce success. In strategic terms, success is producing a sustainable outcome that is valuable and maintainable over time. Strategy, then, is not just creating winning tactics; rather it is winning the competitive battle over the long haul. Focusing only on tactics at the expense of an overall strategy is dangerous in the extreme, and almost never leads to long-term success.

Most of us think that strategic thought and execution are very difficult. To the contrary, we can learn to do both. The operative word, however, is “learn.” We all grow up in a tactical world, where looking both ways before we cross the street is a necessity for survival. Likewise, in our education, we spend the overwhelming majority of our time learning details, while we spend little time trying to integrate what we have learned.

So, unfortunately, strategy is foreign to most of us - we have had little exposure to it, and we are normally rewarded for tactical, not strategic, prowess. If, however, we really want our efforts to produce sustained success, then we must learn how to strategize at both a business and a personal level.

Fortunately, despite the mysteries surrounding strategy, learning to think and act strategically is not too difficult, but it does require you to view the world in a different way, with a wider mental ‘lens’, and a long term perspective.

Strategic thinking is the way in which people in a business think about, assess, view, and create the future for themselves and their companies. It is more than simply responding to both day-to-day and long-term problems, opportunities and new realities; it is creating tomorrow. It is not reactive, but proactive. Strategic thinking and planning focuses on how to create a better future by being proactive —adding value to your company—through the accomplishment of high payoff results.

Remember, in the end, strategic thinking and planning are simply management tools — period. As with any management tool, it can be learned, and it is used for one purpose only: to help you win - to focus your energy, to ensure that you are clear on your goals, and to assess and adjust the direction of your business in response to a changing environment.

Strategic Planning Products on our marketplace

Certified Professional Management Consultant Jim McCarthy currently works in Oceanside, CA with his wife, Career Consultant Barbara McCarthy.For information on a complete Strategic Planning System, please go to href="www.prometheusstrategy.com"