Your organization creates its future when it enhances its strengths and targets society’s future wants. In order to create your future, clearly identify your greatest strengths; discern where your clients’ needs will move in the future; and develop the strengths to best satisfy them.
Perform a Strategic Strengths Audit
- Review your organization’s history for repetitive successes and unearth what made them happen. Your best strengths create success repeatedly and under different circumstances.
- Ask customers about times when they were satisfied when dealing with you.
- Ask internal customers of every subdivision about exceptional results from their internal suppliers.
- Ask the leadership team to rate all aspects of the organization’s overall performance. Look for consensus responses supported by evidence.
Look for repetitions across these sources.
Conduct a Future Audit
Clients’ wants are moving targets, so you strive to be the first to satisfy them when they arise. Review how demographics, the economy, environment, government, competition, social attitudes and technology are changing.
How will your clients’ important needs change and what new clients will emerge? Identify how successful competitors are changing what they do and how they do it. Look at upcoming legislation to see which new societal needs are being supported, then identify how technology can affect the nature of your product, and how it can be produced and delivered. Identify the way people will interact with you in the future, as well as how they will interact within the organization.
Look for new products to accomplish your mission. A successful future audit will unearth many opportunities.
Discover and Create Your Future
Which opportunities are best to pursue in the foreseeable future? The answer lies in identifying opportunities that match the short list of your most powerful strengths.
Create a Plan to Build Your Critical Strengths
How can your strengths improve in order to better satisfy society’s future needs?
Invest in people. Identify the next level they could reach and provide excellent training.
Focus efforts. Remove nonessential activities so a higher proportion of energy takes advantage of their strengths.
Provide support. Make sure that needed resources are delivered promptly.
When your plans to build upon your key strengths unfold and you aim to fulfill future needs, you will be able to outshine all others in satisfying customers’ needs. You will create your future.