Start Your Year With a Great Business Checklist

As we start this new year, most small to midsized businesses have done their strategic plan for 2022. Most strategic plans rely on the numbers of where the company needs to be at projected points in time during the year. A lot of plans describe in words what the company’s objectives are and what the company will consider a success in attaining the strategic objectives. Is the entire team focused on the plan, or does each team member even know what the plan is?

Most great businesspeople will tell you the true way to attain those strategic objectives is both involvement of each team member and focus. If your team stays on point moving toward those objectives, the team will meet those objectives. The trick is how to keep the team both involved and focused on the objectives and goals for the year, when there are so many issues and distractions that may keep the team from retaining that focus.

One way to do that is to make use of checklists. The objectives from the strategic plan can set specific goals for various parts of the year (monthly or quarterly) for the company as a whole, and then set goals for what each section of the company is responsible for during those same timeframes. The goals for the whole company and the goals for each section of the business, e.g., plant, sales/marketing, customer service, etc., are written down in the form of a checklist for that particular section. The checklist for the managerial team can be reviewed by that team regularly, which contain the overall goals for the company and where the company stands on meeting those goals as of that meeting. Each team section should review their checklist regularly, and measure their results against the checklist, but this will only happen if the checklist is a regular part of the agenda. By doing this, the sections of the business can identify issues where the section has not met the goals and course correct, so that the annual goals can still be met.

It is also helpful to include on the checklist the vision for the company. Every company’s strategic plan is based upon the company’s vivid vision. Some companies will use the format described by Cameron Herold in his book “Vivid Vision.” The company’s vision, as is described in this book, comes alive and is meant to be shared with the entire team. It is this vision that produces the strategic plan for the year. If the entire team understands and buys into the vivid vision, it is easier to have the team members stay involved and focused on the goals on the checklist, as they understand how the plan fits the vision. Each team meeting should start with the vision, move to the strategic plan, and for the section meetings of the team, use the checklist to support their part of the goals.

Having a written strategic plan is a good way to start your year, but it is not as good as having a Vivid Vision that is alive and which your entire team is invested in, along with goals for both the company and the team sections that will be reviewed and measured regularly over this year using checklists to reinforce the vision and goals. It is only by doing this, that your entire team will be focused on and attain the goals set forth in your plan.

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Denice Gierach

Gierach Law Firm

Denice Gierach is an attorney, CPA, Northwestern University business master's graduate, and has owned several businesses from real estate to manufacturing. She is the lead attorney at Gierach Law Firm in the Chicago area. With more than 30 years of experience, she has been a respected and sought-after resource for businesses looking to grow, sell, solve problems, and succeed long term. Her insights across business areas gives a fuller lens to business issues and solutions, and helps businesses grow and succeed with less time spent on legal issues and other time-consuming problems.

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