Four Tips to Achieve Your 2013 Strategic Goals
by Mark Arnold
It’s hard to believe, but the calendar just flipped another year from 2012 to 2013. Financial institutions across the country have spent immeasurable hours and dollars preparing strategic plans for the new year. The task now becomes staying focused on those strategic plans as the usual pile-on of daily tasks and distractions assault our attention spans starting now.
To help you accomplish your 2013 goals, consider the following four tips.
- Stay focused. Sounds a bit redundant, but it’s key. Don’t start the New Year chasing wild geese. Instead, stay in alignment with your 2013 strategic plan. Of course, any good plan must have flexibility built into it so if something truly time-worthy comes along you are able to pursue it. Other than that, however, stay true to your plan. Often we’re faced with a mounting “to-do” list and the question shouldn’t be “Can you do this project?” but “Should you do this project?” Whenever one of these tasks arises, ask yourself, “Does this fit into the 2013 strategic plan and goals?” And don’t manage by crisis. If you spend all day long putting out little fires, the odds of accomplishing your 2013 goals diminish considerably.
- Commit budget dollars. In order to achieve your 2013 goals, you must allocate sufficient resources (both in dollars and manpower) to them. Look at your goals and ask, “Have we really devoted enough of the budget to make this happen?” If one of your 2013 strategic goals is to emphasize branding, do you have the dollar muscle behind that to realistically make it happen? You cannot expect great results without realistic funding.