As we close month 1 of the year(!), I’m excited to round out our new year series with translating your long-term plan and goals, into year planning.
And over time, I’ve learned: the majority of people who have big ideas take little action. Year planning is the connective tissue between having a goal and reaching it.
How Does Year Planning Relate to Strategy?
“Strategy” is one of those buzzwords that people throw around (“strategic this, strategic that…”). Yet most cannot tell you what strategy actually is. So when we’re talking about strategy in this setting, I think about the description I learned when I started my first strategy job, 14 years ago:
A good strategy has an essential logical structure that I call the kernel. The kernel of a strategy contains three elements: a diagnosis, a guiding policy, and coherent action… Coherent actions are feasible coordinated policies, resource commitments, and actions.
–Good Strategy, Bad Strategy by Richard Rumelt
So when doing year planning, we translate the diagnosis and guiding policy into coherent actions (I love this phrase).
A well-crafted year plan helps you:
- Focus on your highest-impact activities.
- Eliminate distractions and shiny objects.
- Align yourself and others around shared objectives.
Step-by-Step Year Planning Process
Here’s a 3-day framework to translate your goals and priorities into a focused annual strategy… (PS – if you’re thinking, “More away time!?” there’s an invitation for Ellevated Outcomes to help, if you desire).
Day 1: Reflection and Goal Setting
If you’ve already refreshed your long-term plan and goals (as described in the past 2 weeks), you’ve done the bulk of this. But I suggest revisiting. Personally, I’m a woman of many drafts. So I like doing a version 1, version 2, and leaving room to let things marinate and evolve.
1. Personal Check-In
Your personal goals and vision are just as critical as your business ones. Reflect on how your business supports the life you want to live. Consider creating a vision board or writing out your goals to clarify your intentions.
2. Revisit Vision, Mission, and Values
Return to your business’s mission and vision. What language resonates most with clients, employees, and partners? Identify where your company excelled in embodying its values and where it fell short. Did your business stray from its mission? And when you pause and reflect on the past year, did your business move closer or further away from its lofty vision?
3. Assess Your Current Reality
Evaluate the current state of your business. On a scale from 1-10 (no 7), how is your business doing in each of these areas?
- Client experience
- Current clients
- Marketing
- Target market
- Profitability
- Processes
- Technology
- Diversity, inclusion, & equity
- People
- Culture
- Leadership
- Product
4. Define a 3-Year Vision
Illustrate your 3-year vision. I like to write a 1-2 paragraph narrative that starts with:
“On [insert specific date, 3 years from now] my business looks, feels, and performs like…”
5. Review Last Year’s Goals
Compare last year’s plan to what actually happened. What worked, and what didn’t? Draw 3 columns in a piece of paper with these headings:
- (Original) goal
- What actually happened?
- So What? Lessons learned and adjustments to make for the future.
Then for each goal or plan, fill in what you accomplished and reflect on the “So what?”
Day 2: Develop the Strategy
In the terminology of Richard Rumelt, this is where we really tease out your diagnosis and guiding policies. This is the part where people start to get overwhelmed and paralyzed by what they don’t know is possible.
1. Turn your 3-Year Vision into an Objective
Break down your high-level 3-year vision into a clear objective.
2. Work Back to a 1-Year Objective
Translate your 3-year objective-statement into an objective for the next year (a step in that direction). I like to follow the SMART goal framework: Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, Time-bound.
3. Choose Your Priorities
Identify no more than 3 priorities that will be most impactful to reach your 1-year objective. To streamline and simplify, we typically choose from the 5 Ps in the Ellevated Outcomes Framework™: People, Product, Placement (Marketing), Process, or Profit. For each priority, write a clear description of “complete.” It should be black and white enough for you to answer “Did we achieve this?” at the end of the year.
4. Design the Action Steps for Each Priority.
For each priority and its description, what are the 3 specific actions to achieve them? Some of these actions may be quickie “just do it” actions, but some may be larger. You can think of them as projects. Now: this is so, so important: you can only have 3 actions for each of your 3 priorities. Do now have any more than 9 actions/projects for the year. If you do, I promise: you’ll become overwhelmed or burned out.
Day 3: Build Your Action Plan
The prior 2 days (and particularly day 2) are hard work. Really. So, I want to warn you upfront: when you complete day 2, you’ll be tempted to stop. And I understand; it’s right to be pooped. But I implore you to keep going. This final stage makes all the actions of your year planning feel possible. Or to the contrary, it illuminates what’s not possible so that you can simplify. That’s a good outcome too; you want to know what’s realistic upfront.
When we map everything onto a timeline for our clients (and ourselves too!), the overwhelm calms. You can visually see how and when the year planning turns into reality.
1. Create a Timeline
Chart your 9 (or fewer) actions onto a timeline. Break them out, quarter by quarter and month by month.
2. Identify Resources and Dependencies
For each milestone, consider:
- What resources (time, money, people) do we need? Do we have them? Do we need to find them? If outside help or money is required, do we have easy access to it?
- What are the risks, and what’s the backup plan if something goes awry?
3. Schedule Celebrations
Plan ways to celebrate achievements throughout the year. Recognizing progress can boost morale and keep you and your team motivated. Insider tip: if celebrations aren’t your strength, ask someone else for help here <guilty>.
The Power of Your Strategy in a Year Plan
There’s another definition of strategy that I often cite. It comes from my boss in 2013, Jim Williamson:
Strategy is the allocation of scarce resources to the highest priorities.
Contrary to popular belief, strategy is simple. Definitely not easy, but simple. It’s not a 20 pg. Powerpoint, nor is it business jargon. An elegant strategy solves an important and complex problem, with a simple guiding principle that is actionnable.
This 3-day framework is a guide for how you can do this for your own business, each and every year. But at the same time: please don’t fret or get caught in all-or-nothing thinking. Even for someone with 13 years of strategy experience, it’s taken me 7 years to iterate this process to my most idealized Ellevated Outcomes version. So just focus on adding a little more discipline and improvement, each year.
Alternatively, if you’d like a guide to lead your small business to its next level, I happen to know a great Outsourced Strategy Department ; ) Afterall, this is what we do for a living at Ellevated Outcomes. If you’re a small creative business in design, boutique retail, or high end professional/personal services and are interested in hearing what it would look like to have us lease you through this process, we’d love to see if we can help.
