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Intentional Leadership — D5, W1, M10 — Strategy

Good morning and Happy Friday! It’s been a great week for me; I’ve been productive and focused and moving forward. This progress didn’t simply happen, and it certainly wasn’t immediate. It’s taken a lot of work over many days, weeks, months, and I am building momentum. It feels great! So nice to be centered in my purpose, operating in my passion zone, and focused on what matters most.

So, as I prepare for my weekend, I know exactly what I need to focus on: First, family time. I think we need a field trip to the farmer’s market or the WV Zoo (yes, I was surprised to discover this, but apparently there is a zoo in WV). Second, preparation for a couple of workshops I have booked  mid-October — one focused on communication fundamentals and one on Laws of Growth and Laws of Leadership. Third, catch up on bookkeeping. Fourth, some reading, writing, and studying. Oh, and yoga!

Next week, I will spend time planning for an upcoming team building and communication workshop, hold several coaching appointments, and prepare for a new Mastermind Group on John Maxwell’s newest book (to be launched October 10th with a live webcast — more on this in a separate post) Sometimes You Win, Sometimes You Learn.

You know what’s coming next, right?

What’s your plan for the weekend?

Whom do you need to spend time with?

What do you need to do for yourself?

Do you need to focus on work, learning, projects, or rest?

What do you need to do to prepare yourself for success on Monday, in the coming weeks, and even months?

How much better do you feel when you are intentional about how you spend your weekend time and how you prepare for the coming days and weeks?

I would love to hear if you are following this practice and what affects it’s having on your life.

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Intentional Leadership — D4, W1, M10 — Strategy

There are two key components to a strategy — the vision and the plan to achieve it. It truly is that simple.

As a leader, its your responsibility to not only dream the vision and be able to articulate it to your team / organization, but also to create the plan and inspire your team / organization to achieve it.

This is another area in which it is important that your level of self-awareness is high. In all honesty, are you better at the dreaming part or the achieving it part?

Explain your answer to that question.

Now that you are focused on your personal strength, and have been giving thought to the importance of strategy in achieving goals, what are the keys to an effective strategy?

What are your weaknesses around strategy?

How do you compensate for them?

Strategy without tactics is the slowest route to victory. Tactics without strategy is the noise before defeat.   ~Sun Tzu

Having spent a considerable amount of time and energy reflecting on this, and having undergone a broad variety of personal assessments and 360 reviews, I can easily say I’m good at creating a vision and laying out the strategic plan. From a tactical standpoint, I am perfectly capable of defining specific tactics and carrying them out, but this part of the process is not my primary strength, consequently it is a much more taxing part of the process for me. I, as well as my team or organization, am better served if I have within my resources someone whose strength lies in the tactical work.

What about you?

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Intentional Leadership — D3, W1, M10 — Strategy

Today, examine the core strategies your organization or team  is following. Are they easily explained and when written, do they fit on one page? If not, it’s time for some review and simplification. Challenge your team to do the same — simplify the core strategies each member of your team will follow in their specific roles that will allow them to support the organizational strategies — and fit them on one page.

Again, if they are too complicated and difficult to explain, understand, or follow, no one will use them.

Then, bring your team together and evaluate each person’s revised strategy. This exercise will allow you to determine whether individual members really understand the overall organizational strategies, and if they are on track to support the bigger picture goals.

This is a great opportunity to address any adjustments that need to be made and to refine individual and team-level strategies to ensure your team is on track to meet organizational goals.

Take some time, right now, to get started.

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