As I sat naked with the bank president in the steam room at ourdowntown YMCA, the conversation turned to strategic planning. Hisbank had recently hired a third-party facilitator to help leadtheir meetings and it was going well. They thought they knewtheir bank. But after the last meeting they were not so sure.

The president and his team had always view their business as an“average guy’s” bank. But after scanning through their data,they discovered a discrepancy between who they thought of astheir customers and who they actually were. The data showedthat their actual client was more affluent than they'd thought, butthey had very little penetration of each individual’s entirebanking needs.

That conversation got me to thinking about all the time ourcompany has spent on “strategic planning.” Planning is key tothe success of a business or anything else. But too often, thebest-laid plans end up in a file on the network that is neverreviewed or referenced. Results are rarely measured againstbenchmarks--unless goals are hit, in which case, the plan isbrandished around like a new IPhone 6 at a coffee shop. Ifgoals are missed, good luck finding the plan. It’s on theZ: drive under, don’t remind us how bad weare doing.

To help you in your strategic planning for 2015, I'd liketo offer 5.4 things to think about when you begin theprocess. After all, 'tis the season:

1. Be concise. Go here and steal theirone-page strategic plan:

https://www.gazelles.com/gazellesGrowthTools.html

It’s free, they encourage you to use it in the hope that youwill use their other materials. We have used this tool overthe years and found it to be a good road map and presentationtool.

Use it as a road map. Conduct a SWOT (strengths,weaknesses, opportunities, threats) analysis; set the goals,get the plans. Many times the strategic planning process is sooverblown that very few measurable items are gleaned from themeetings. Keep it simple and make sure it fits on onepage.

2. Pick an uninformed champion. The loweryou go on the agency org chart, the better. The CEO shouldhave a copy of the plan and drive the company using the plan, butpick someone at a lower level to compare the goal with the actualresults. Let them lead the conversation each month aboutresults versus goals. You might be surprised the impact ofthis recommendation.

The CEO will have his or her their version of why thingsare not as they should be, but the champion might just askquestions about things that management may overlook for why theymissed a goal. Taking a step back might be the sole reason for themiss. Bring in a rookie and tell them what you are tryingto do. Then give them the goal, the actual resultsand allow them to ask “why.”

3. Define five measurables. Sales,expenses, percentage of penetration of a particular market; theseare all good goals and measurable. But pick one or two that are alittle unusual, such as phone call-to-email percentage, orcell expense-per-salesperson vs. their actual revenue.These are fun ideas to track that could lead to some veryinteresting conversations.

4. Use a dashboard. Monthly datareporting in dashboard form that can be viewed by the entireorganization is key. When you leave the planning meeting,everyone is on board, but what about 3 months later? Keeppeople accountable with agreed-upon measurables that arereported and updated monthly. Include a copy of theone-page plan on your dashboard.

5. Hire an outside third party to oversee theprocess. This is a key point. Don’t letmanagement dictate the meeting or the output. Meetings shouldinclude both key people and lower-level employees who have neverbeen involved in the process. An impartial third party canhelp organize and keep everyone on track, but the ideas that willflow from the bottom up will surprise everyone. The third party canhelp manage the tired old existing goals with some of the newerenergy ideas offered by the “folks that had yet to fail" as much asso of the older team members.

5.1. Reduce your mission statement. Quick,recite your agency's mission statement. If you can’t, don'texpect anyone else to. Your mission statement is the phrasethat pays. If it's too verbose, rework it to something thatyou, your employees, and your clients will know and understand--thesimpler, the better.

We did this years ago and ended up with a nine-wordstatement:

Find the Pain

Heal the Pain

Show the Love

That is our mission statement: We know it, our staff knows it,our vendors know it, and our clients know it.

Try these 5.1 tips and you might actually might get somebenefit from something that in too many cases is an annualtraditional waste of time.