The Two Required Elements of Accomplishing Goals

It’s that time of year again—strategic planning offsites are happening all around the world. Planning for 2017 is on the minds of companies everywhere.

Creating your strategic initiatives is important. We at 5 Dynamics work with companies all over the world to ensure that their strategic planning activities are focused on two elements:

• Realistic plans
• Aligned teams to accomplish those plans

1st Element: Plan Frequently Rather Than Annually

Some organizations participate in this type of activity once a year, but we review our goals every quarter at 5 Dynamics. The annual planning cadence has never really worked for me. I found that holding strategic planning sessions once a year was not enough. Too much can happen in twelve months. The beautiful plans that we created annually did not even make sense six months later, too many factors had changed.

Just like performance reviews, strategic planning needs to be more of an ongoing conversation.

2nd Element: Aligning Teams

Typically, companies address what they want to accomplish, but rarely do they look at the people within the process. Who is going to be accomplishing these goals? How do they think? What do they see readily and what might they miss? Where might they have friction points? Do our teams even make sense? Could there be a better way to align the people within the process?

If you have great plans but there is no one on your team who shares those plans with others and gets the entire organization on board, those plans will not move towards completion. If your plans are not grounded in reality, then you will not achieve your goals, and if those plans are constantly shifting, your teams will not know how to help you achieve them.

You can have the best goal-planning software in the world, but without aligning your people around those goals, you will not have positive results. That is where 5 Dynamics comes in.

5 Dynamics Aligns Teams

We understand people. Within three minutes, we can help your people understand their natural tendencies and the tendencies of others. We can look at any team and help the team members see where they might run into trouble and how they can avoid those pitfalls. Our focus is on the people within the process, an area that is often times overlooked.

So this year when you head to those off-sites, don’t forget that even the most creative plans can only be accomplished through people. Whether you are focused on strategic planning or project planning, 5 Dynamics is here to help. Both activities require your most precious resource, your people, to show up each day engaged, aligned, and happy to be there helping you achieve your goals.