I had lunch with the CEO of a technology firm the other day. Among other things, we talked for a while about the tactics he is implementing within his organization to position it for long term success. As he has recently taken the company reigns, he has been spending a fair amount of his time developing the long term strategy for the company. His excitement for the business and its future was contagious and it reminded me of why I wanted to open the A Plus Benefits’ Idaho office.

After leaving our meeting I thought about several other CEOs that I’ve met over the years and realized that after the initial start up phase, very few of them consistently sit down to consider their company’s long term strategy. Mostly because they were so mired in time sensitive tasks.

After witnessing first hand the many daily challenges associated with operating a business I can relate to the difficulty of finding the time to develop a good strategy. Here are five ideas for those business owners that are also struggling to find enough time to work on their business strategy.

1. Once every few years get out of the office for an executive retreat. This will remove you from the daily grind and allow you to think about the bigger picture.
2. Recruit a client advisory board to provide outside perspective into business operations. This will also help you prove to your clients that you care about their feedback and are willing to improve their experience with your company.
3. Take a small group of employees to lunch once a month. No, not the same group you go to lunch with every other day. Take a few of the employees that just started working for the company in one of the “front line” jobs. Not only will these folks provide you with some great ideas, but they’ll feel appreciated and valued in their role.
4. Begin having a cup of Hot Cocoa with another business owner once a month. Bounce ideas off of each other and consider how their proven strategies could be adapted to your industry.
5. Block a few hours out on your calendar to work on strategy and then rigorously defend that time. I think this works best when you actually leave the office. Shut off your cell phone and exclude yourself for a bit.

Most business owners didn’t go into business for the daily grind. Almost all that I’ve met felt like they had unique strategies for an industry that, in their view, could use some improvement. They opened their doors to revolutionize the industry and are now so bogged down in minutia that work has lost a bit of its excitement. In addition, because they haven’t been able to focus on the strategy, many of their businesses have become mirror images of the model they wanted to change.

By focusing on the big picture, businesses continue to adjust and evolve to changing industry forces and business owners are able to focus on the real reasons they went into business.

Jake Lunt is the General Manager of Idaho operations for A Plus Benefits, Inc.

This entry was posted on Friday, August 10th, 2007 at 1:26 pm and is filed under Creativity, Leadership, Networking. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.