Reflecting on Your 2024 Business Strategy

As a LinkedIn Editorial Top Voice, thought leader, author, educator, strategy facilitator, and training practitioner, I write a weekly article that benefits existing or emerging leaders who want to improve their organizations significantly.

Were We Successful?

As the calendar year ends, it is a good time to reflect on what has happened in our businesses over the past twelve months. How did it go? Did we achieve the results we had hoped to see as we looked forward back in January? Did we achieve success in implementing our business strategies? In this article, we'll be able to explore steps to reflect on the success of our strategy from the previous year. I include our and we as I need to follow the advice I share with others in assessing my consulting company 2024 strategy.

However beautiful the strategy, you should occasionally look at the results. – Sir Winston Churchill

Revisiting Our Goals and Objectives

Churchill shares excellent advice on the need to pause and reflect regardless of the robustness of our initial strategy development. I have witnessed many solid strategy initiatives that never materialized due to a lack of proper tactical planning and change management. We should revisit the goals and objectives set at the start of the year and ask:

• Did we set specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound (SMART) goals?
• Did the goals and objectives align with our overall mission and vision? Has the mission and vision changed?
• Were the key performance indicators (KPIs) properly aligned to gauge our strategy's success?

The results of this revisiting process should be documented with attention focused on which goals were met, partially achieved, and unmet.

Seeking Stakeholder Input

Intelligent leaders develop their organization's strategy using a whole-system approach that includes representation from their stakeholders. Stakeholder groups include, at minimum, customers, employees, government, lenders, local community, owners, society, and suppliers. Others can consist of a board of directors, competitors, distributors, media, Mother Nature, professional organizations, regulatory agencies, trade associations, unions, the world's ecological community, and, not to be forgotten, shareholders.

• Does our mission and vision inspire our stakeholders and provide a North Star that guides us to our desired destination? Do they continue to be motivated to take strategic actions, including some that may be painful, to achieve the vision?
• How do stakeholders perceive the impact of the strategy?
• Were there any unintended consequences or missed opportunities?

The information can be gathered using focus group interviews and surveys. The collected data should be reviewed for common themes.

Identify Successes

For this work to have the most significant impact, it must use positive psychology principles. By applying the principles of positive psychology, businesses can create a more human-centered and thriving workplace that benefits both employees and the bottom line. Meaningful conversations are needed to understand one another better as team members to assess the achieved successes fully by asking:

• What were our specific accomplishments?
• What were the factors that contributed to our success in achieving these accomplishments? Where did we exceed expectations?
• What worked well and why? What were the most significant hurdles, and how did we overcome them?

Our information will provide key takeaways and best practices for future strategy development.

Celebrate Successes

It is essential for building stronger employee engagement and morale to recognize the work that contributed to achieving the desired outcomes. Plans should be put in place to define:

• What should be done to provide meaningful gratitude to individuals and teammates who have contributed to completing the various strategy initiatives?
• Who should we work with to document new internal best practices and case studies that will benefit future strategy development?

As we celebrate success, our people are reassured – A snowball effect occurs as small, positive results build upon one another, accelerating the pace of strategy implementation. Morale and confidence increase and motivation rises as success begets success.

Opportunities for Improvement

Successful organizations recognize the need to develop a learning environment supporting a willingness to fail while taking calculated risks occasionally. A culture encouraging intelligent risk-taking understands that pushing the boundaries will lead to learning when experiencing less favorable outcomes but collectively enhances organizational capabilities. Doing so leads to asking:

• What additional resources, skills, or tools would have led to successful strategy initiative implementations?
• What processes can be further refined to make them more efficient and streamlined?

When seen as opportunities for improvement, the focus is on lessons learned rather than placing blame. This is done through effective two-way, nonjudgmental communication, which focuses on creating a culture that encourages supportive dialogue and appropriate input from all stakeholders.

Key Takeaways

As the calendar year ends, it is a good time to reflect on what has happened in our businesses over the past twelve months. For this work to have the most significant impact, it must use positive psychology principles. A culture that encourages intelligent risk-taking that understands that pushing the boundaries will lead to learning when experiencing less favorable outcomes but collectively enhances organizational capabilities.

First Step

A suggested first step is for the organization's leader to develop a team to complete the strategy evaluation. The team's success improves by including the representation of critical stakeholders. The team members should also possess instinctive, intellectual, intuitive, and rational characteristics.

My Gratitude

I appreciate individuals like Dr. Barbara Fredrickson, a leading figure in positive psychology. Her research led to the understanding that humans need a minimum of three positive emotions for every negative one, or a positivity ratio of 3:1, to flourish. The higher the positivity ratio, the greater the potential for high employee engagement and morale.

How Can I Help?

Do you need help crafting strategies that empower your team, transform your operations, and build a sustainable future for your business? If so, please get in touch with me to schedule a consultation and take the first step toward purposeful growth. Feel free to book an appointment, email me at JoeSprangel.ESS@gmail.com, or call me at 734-664-9076 if you need help with my manufacturing support services, such as strategy training and facilitation.

Invite Others

If you find this newsletter helpful, please share it with those in your network who would benefit from subscribing. They can access it at Humanist Manufacturing. Thank you in advance for your continued support, which I greatly appreciate.

Additional Information

To learn more about our work or read more blog posts, visit emmanuelstratgicsustainability.com.

I encourage you to read my book Humanist Manufacturing: A Humanitarian Approach to Excellence in High-Impact Plant Operations. The paperback and eBook versions are now available at Amazon and many other booksellers. You can also watch the Humanist Manufacturing Book Launch video to gain additional insight into the humanist manufacturing framework.

Sign up for Strategy, Change Management, & Tactical Planning (Regularly $149 but $99 for a limited time). The course assists in the strategy development and planning necessary to move the company from the current state to a more human-centered future state operation. The course participant learns how to shift conversations from a deficit to a strengths-based approach essential to drive the beneficial change required to achieve transformational organizational results. The content provides guidance to utilize the SOAR framework for strategy development, the work to develop tactical plans, and the elements of a successful change management initiative.

If you like what you have read, I invite you to connect with me on LinkedIn. I am honored and humbled for this recognition as a LinkedIn Editorial Top Voice, an invitation-only group featuring senior-level experts and leaders. Less than 0.5% of LinkedIn members receive this invitation, which is 1 billion LinkedIn members.

See my virtual TEDx videos at Reinventing the Prison Industrial Complex and Humanist Manufacturing.

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