Strategic Planning Video Series: Focus on the Endpoint

Build, document, and summarize your vision.

As we continue our video series on strategic planning, here are the five steps to strategic planning Aimee and Taylor will cover within the series.

Coker’s Approach to Strategic Planning in Five Steps

  1. Understand the Starting Point
  2. Focus on the Endpoint
  3. Outline Your Course
  4. Set Mile Markers Along the Road
  5. Ensure You Have the Right Resources

Step 2: Focus on the Endpoint

When Apple ousted Steve Jobs from the company he built in 1985, he had to watch helplessly for over a decade as the company struggled. When he returned, he had the difficult job of pulling the company back up. We all know what happens to Apple from there; they revolutionized the industry, introducing the iPhone and other innovative products, at one point becoming one of the most valuable companies in the world.

So how did he do it? Simple. He had a vision.

Steve Jobs understood the importance of a vision and would reject design after design if it did not meet those needs. In his first year, he canceled 70% of Apple’s products because they did meet that vision.

“If you are working on something exciting that you really care about, you don’t have to be pushed. The vision pulls you.”

To create a vision for your organization, work to create a picture of “who you want to be when you grow up.” Answer how the company will look in one year, five years, and ten years.

It sounds easy, but how do we do it?

  1. Build It
  2. Document It
  3. Summarize It

Watch Episode 2: Focus on the Endpoint for the details of those three steps.

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