It is first thing Monday morning and you have been in the office for 6 ½ minutes when your Sales Manager buzzes you. Your top customer has a problem and she needs your input “right now”. Whatever you had planned to do first thing Monday morning has now gone out the window. If you are lucky, you may get back to your Monday schedule sometime before lunch. At this moment, your focus isn’t on the strategic plan, it isn’t even on tomorrow, it is on RIGHT NOW!
This is why having a strategic plan with action steps and due dates is so important. It is like a tether and a life jacket that keep you from drowning or straying too far down stream in the high current of daily business.
Do you think it will get easier in the years ahead? With more streams of communication, more “information”, better technology and more forms of social media? There will be more demands on your attention and more places you need to “show up”. The chance you will get lost only increases exponentially.
Only with discipline to your focus and clear metrics that the whole team understands and drives towards, will you survive better than the competition. Your focus will drive the company focus. Where are you putting your attention?