Try a 30-Minute Exercise to Kick-Start your Thinking.

Sometimes just getting started is the hardest part.

Especially these days—when working from home means that the intersecting, urgent obligations seem to crowd out that all-important, but non-urgent, time to just simply think.

For those of you who are struggling to focus and get some organizational thinking started, here is a 30-minute exercise to try that will get the juices flowing, and get your strategic thinking started.

I first published this on LinkedIn. If you’d like my help with this exercise, please get in touch.

Exercise: If you need to think about your organization’s future

This exercise is for those of you struggling to focus and get some organizational thinking done during these difficult times.

• Write an email to yourself.

• Begin by answering this question: our next strategic plan will be completed, approved and ready to be implemented by when? Make the answer an exact date.

• Next, jot down three reasons why your organization should be doing strategic planning now? (old plan is ending, new pressures, COVID-19 impacts, other changes in the environment, etc.) Conversely, give three consequences that may occur if you fail to craft a new plan.

• Then, in a single sentence, write down what you would like the legacy of this planning process to be? (bold new vision, deeper connect to stakeholders through meaningful engagement in shaping the plan, etc.)

• Finally, answer the following two questions: what do we need to make decisions? (evidence, stakeholder feedback, data, new business models, etc.), and who do we need to help us shape this plan, when and why?

Congratulations! You’ve just started some thinking on which you can begin to build a strategic planning process.

If you’d like my coaching help to push this exercise into a fully-realized plan, please get in touch.