How to strategically assess your year end (no complicated templates required)
December 2024
How did we do? Was our strategy successful this year?
It’s a critical question to ask at year end, especially as you gear up to kick off the next cycle, but shockingly few teams know the answer to that question. Others may discuss, but team members have a varying view. Most organizations are fairly good at tracking plans, looking at dashboards, and conducting business plan reviews. But knowing how well the strategy and growth are working, that’s usually lacking.
Teams that do conduct assessments often make another mistake in only asking about the current plan. When gathering to review progress, the tempting question to start the meeting with is: Are we on track to plan? It’s a comforting question, as we like to be tracking, but starting a review meeting with that question makes a set of assumptions: there was only one track, we got it right the first time, and the situation has not changed. It’s hard to name an industry for which those assumptions hold this year!
Plans are not bad, per say, but when it comes to growth strategy, we want to shift from planning mode to preparation mode, where we make decisions based on beliefs, are ok with directions over destinations, and sometimes need to track towards milestones rather than precise metrics.
Viewing your strategy only as a plan to implement also moves the team into heads down tracking mode. In a volatile and changing environment this is a dangerous place to be: we need to be in heads up learning mode.
More simply, just asking about the plan tracking misses the role of the assessment: we want to know how well we do strategy!
As you reflect on your strategy at the end of each year, consider asking three simple, powerful questions:
Did we get it right?
Did we choose it right?
Did we do it right??
Get it right? First, did we get it right? This assesses how well your team called the situation correctly. When your team reviewed the strategic situation, and the top trends most shaping the environment at the beginning of the cycle, how well did you call out the most critical trends? When you articulated your stances, or beliefs, on these trends, how clear and robust were your beliefs? Did you pull out the right assumptions to test and track your beliefs? Without these, we do not know how to adapt in a way that maintains alignment. Did you assess the evolving situation in a clear enough way to know how to chart a course to compete and win?
Key takeaway: How strong is your team’s strategic scoping?
Choose it right: Next, did we choose it right? That is, after we articulated our critical strategic beliefs, did we set the right priorities to win in this environment? Were these the appropriate priorities to target? Really challenge yourselves if you were focusing on the true, needle-moving priorities, or instead did operational tactics, business as usual, or pet projects make their way onto the list of to do’s? Also assess your scoping. The priorities could be theoretically the right ones, but scoped so widely that every activity any team member wanted to do technically lived within them. Did you set a list of narrowly defined, winnable priorities, or did these become big buckets of activities? Remember, the more priorities you fight, the less of them you will win.
Key takeaway: How strong is your team’s strategic prioritization?
Do it right: Third, did you do it right? When it comes to executing these priorities, how well did you do in making them happen? Were the metrics the right ones to track to, and if so, did you meet them? Did you adjust as you went because the situation changed, or did you pull back on metrics as you were behind? What about resourcing? Did you provide your priorities with the critical time, treasure, and talent they needed to succeed? Did your processes and governance boost agility or slow you down?
Key takeaway: How strong is your execution discipline?
Check how much you agree as a team by assigning a score of one to five for each one but also be clear on the why behind the rating. Align on your strengths and gaps. Most teams have a clear competitive advantage in one of these three areas, and a glaring weakness in another. Most importantly, agree what you are going to adjust next year to further boost strategy and growth capability?
We are operating in a fast-changing world where the future unknowns can feel greater than the established knowns. The winners are not the ones who can diligently implement a plan, they are the teams that outperform in assessing a changing situation, prioritizing a short list of goals to win in this environment, and execute in a way that balances alignment of activities and resources with strategy, coordination cross the organization, and adaptation as the situation changes.
Your competitive environment is changing: it is time to adjust how you holistically assess your ability to win within it.
