Futurist Watts Wacker once said, “If you don't have a vision for yourself or your organization, you will just get sucked into somebody else's vision.”
Malcolm X said, “The future belongs to those who prepare for it today.”
The point is that in order to deal with this turbulent, extreme future, we all need some new tools. This post gives a couple of favorites for you to plan your next year.
1. Start with a personal retreat for yourself.
All you need is about one hour of dedicated time, says visionary and friend of mine, Christina Merkley of Shift-it-Coach. Christina was a lead consultant on the CPA Vision Project and a BLI partner who helped us run graphic facilitation and strategic planning sessions. She offers a great process to kick-start your new year planning in a thoughtful and intentional way.
Read some examples from her own New Year's Retreat and a guide with templates ready for you to use. Just set aside 60 minutes in the next few days and kick-start your new year with a sense of direction and purpose. Download and print her templates and instructions here here.
2. Boil it down to your “elevator story” of three guiding words. This advice comes from social media evangelist Chris Brogan's post titled Your 3 Goals for 2009. He proposes setting goals and then “thinking in broader terms. Extrapolate on the broader terms, and find one word to hang the idea on.” This gives you a focal point for the year and an easy reminder of your goals. I met Chris through Twitter.
By the way, we have done this for our organizations and found it to be very effective.
- MACPA: Connect – Protect – Achieve
- Business Learning Institute: Knowledge – Innovation – Leadership
- MDBizExpo: Collaborate – Innovate – Grow
3. Start a stop-doing list. This comes from Amy Stumme (our executive assistant) and Jackie Brown (COO) at MACPA. Business guru Jim Collins says the hardest thing to do is to stop doing something, yet that is one of the most important things we need to do periodically. Like stripping barnacles off the hull, layer upon layer of projects eventually will slow you down and make it harder to focus. I must admit, this is one of my biggest challenges. I like to say we are opportunity-rich and resource-poor. This could be helpful in sorting that out. Check out these tips to help you:
- Start a Stop Doing List, by Jim Collins (thanks, Jackie)
- Good to Great Expectations, from Business Week (thanks, Amy)
Know any other good tips for getting a handle on how you are going to tackle the new year?