2 Things All CEOs Should Do Before the End of January

Many CEO’s I meet for the first time tell me they’re sure everybody in their leadership team knows the strategic priorities of the company for 2015. This is usually assumed because everybody attended a budget session where top team members presented and agreed on the numbers for the year. Unfortunately when I put this assumption to the test, by asking team members to list down the top 3 strategic priorities of the company, the results are often embarrassing. I rarely get a strategic alignment of more than 30%. Meaning that on average, out of the maximum number of priorities I could get – participants x 3 – I get only 9 answers which are the same! This obviously completely blows away the self-assured CEO.

So, to get all you CEO’s out there started off on the right foot for the year, here are 2 things you should do before this month ends. Get to it now and there’s plenty of time to make sure you reach the end of the year successfully.

1. Collectively Articulate Strategic Priorities for the Year

The last couple of months I’ve been helping companies on primarily one thing: getting the top team aligned behind their 2015 objectives. It’s my signature program and also one that I’m personally most excited about. It not only gives me the opportunity to learn about:

• different companies
• their challenges
• what impacts them
• their aspirations

but above all, I strongly believe that getting your top team aligned behind a collectively held aspiration that’s driven by a meaningful purpose will make the difference on meeting each of your targets or not. And to achieve team alignment you need the organization’s strategy.

So one thing you should do before January is over is to make sure you put all your team members in one room and take them through a process to collectively articulate your strategic priorities for the year and a ‘strategy story’ that you could communicate to the rest of the organisation. Not sure how to get started? Learn the Right Questions to Ask to Achieve Team Alignment.

2. Identify Organizational Capabilities

And when you have your top team together, you might as well also do the second thing you have to do before the end of January: identify the the organisational capabilities that you have to develop to prepare for the future. To do this you need to get out of your comfort zone and

• Put yourself in the future and identify trends that might impact your business,
• Get in the shoes of your competitor and analyse what their growth strategy is and how you can pre-empt this,
• Be absolutely clear about what your customers are looking for (not by assuming that this is what they want, but by actually asking them), and lastly
• Be brutal about your own strength and weaknesses and how this might support or work against you in the future.

Based on these 4 elements you have to identify the capabilities that you need to develop in your team to achieve your aspiration and be nimble enough to adapt when required based on changes in your business.

So to summarize, two things you need to do as a CEO:

1. Get your team on the same page with respect to strategies for the year
2. Understand what capabilities are required to make the strategies happen

If you have any questions about how to achieve these, comment below or connect with me on Twitter. To get tips throughout the year on keeping your leadership team on the right path, subscribe to the blog. Until next week!

Photo Credit: Daniel Kulinski via Compfight cc