You know what they say: vision without execution is just a daydream.
It’s easy to get excited about a new idea, but how do you turn your big ideas into reality?
Here’s a process I’ve used 100s of times that has helped to create significant impact for my clients:
- Create a compelling vision for your business (one that gets you and your team out of bed in the morning). Make sure you have a few horizons in here (e.g. 5 years, 1 year). Think about your business separate from you. Your journey with the business (if you are the founder) is likely to be different to the potential journey or trajectory for the business.
- Do a SWOT analysis to understand the likelihood of success (or failure) to achieve this vision.
- Ideate against your SWOT to find the gems of opportunity (any idea is a good idea at this stage). I recommend doing this with key members of your team.
- Turn it into an actionable plan (over the next 90 days) with owners and delivery dates (THIS IS KEY)
- Keep coming back to your plan on a regular basis and have someone else hold you to account.
More often than not, most plans fall down on point 4&5 above. The accountability piece is just so hard for an individual to do on their own and the existing day-to-day gets in the way of implementing the new.
So, what’s the solution?
If you are a founder or CEO in a smaller organisation, then it can really accelerate your learning to join a mastermind group of like-minded people who are also committed to achieving great results in their lives and businesses.
Alternatively you could get a Business Coach or Consultant (but be aware of the huge nod of certificate waving coaches (I’m assuming that’s the collective noun for coaches?!). Ideally find someone who’s done what you’re trying to do.
If you are a larger organisation, then check out how you could commercialise your client facing team here
