Hello there Fans of Plans! This fortnight I am will be giving a brief overview of two very important parts of running a business - operational and strategic.

So let us begin by defining these two terms: 

Operational:  Helps things in your business work well from day to day – they are generally routine and in-line with your company’s plans and objectives.

Strategic: Is the process of formulating the company’s plans and objectives.

So as you can see – you need to have strategy in order for your organisation’s operations to work well. 

The difficulty comes when you find that you are so bogged down with the operational (making sure your customers have what they need now), that you are too busy to properly think about the strategic side of the business. Now, you may think that’s ok, things are working well as they are, but that status quo can quickly change. You need to make time for strategic planning in order to make sure that your business will still be fit for purpose and operational for years to come. 

How to make time for strategic thinking and planning

There are some excellent books out there to help you with the ins and outs of strategic planning, but here are a few short tips on how to make a start. 

1. Strategic think together – if you want to create a masterplan for world domination in your field (or just increasing your business’s bottom line), then get together the great minds of your top team to bounce ideas off. Group thinking with a diverse group of people will help you come up with some great ideas that you alone may never have thought of. Your different leaders have different perspectives of the business and will be able to help determine how well the strategy will work in their respective areas.
2. Take time out – high energy strategic sessions with your team are great, but you need to take time to reflect on the ideas, let them sink in. How comfortable do you feel with them after group session? Block out time in your diary, do not disturb, phone on silent, and go through all the ideas from the session. This is important; you don’t want to make knee-jerk reactions to something that can affect your business for years to come. 
3. Sound it out – once your strategy starts to take shape, involve your employees, what do they think of the draft direction you want to take the organisation in. Organise a panel of employees from across the business to get their views. Remember that change can be a scary thing, employees will want to know what it means for them – is their job safe? Will they be taking on extra duties? Can they still carry on their current work pattern? Some employees will take more time than others to accept any major strategic changes, so be mindful of this and keep communicating with all your teams. 

Turning the strategic into operational

Once you have your strategy in place, you’ll need to work out how this becomes operational. What do you need to implement in order for your teams to start bringing your strategy to life? Make sure that each of your senior leaders knows how their teams will contribute towards to new strategy. Making sure that you are all working towards a common goal in all areas of the business will be key to the success of the strategy. Communication is key – you cannot work in silos, different areas of the business need to know how they fit together to deliver the strategy. Always make sure there is a communications plan to accompany any major change in strategy.

You know where you can go if you need help with your strategic planning… why, it’s with Make Me A Plan of course! 

PS - If you are keen for some individual wellbeing tips to complement this Working Well life, check our Personal Planner Lauren's Relationship With Self blog, out fortnightly on Tuesdays. You can read the latest edition here: https://www.makemeaplan.com/news/healthy-habits/