Happy Holidays! As scheduled, this is our final blog for 2023! Thank you for your support, and we look forward to bringing you new materials starting Saturday, January 6th, 2024! We hope you have an enjoyable and safe holiday season!

Single Source of Failure 

In September 2020, my appendix burst, 100 miles from my house. During COVID, I was stranded alone in a remote hospital for a week.

At that time, I was a solopreneur in my first year at 40 Strategy. As a result, client work did not get done and marketing was shut down. All schedules were just simply delayed until further notice. In between medically induced naps at the hospital, I sent one too many medically fragile texts to clients. Fortunately, they appeared to understand and probably had a good chuckle. However, I wanted to prevent being the single source of failure in the future.

This past week, we had the first opportunity to test our improvements over the past 3 years.

I was scheduled to be in Long Beach, California for a strategic facilitation with a client. However, I was hit with a sickness that knocked me down for nearly a week.

From a business perspective, what happened this time?

Everything was rescheduled within 24 hours. Supporting client work has been delivered. All marketing efforts continued moving forward.

My efforts to start the process: One Text.

Now, this was not perfect. I could have had another resource available to take my place at the facilitation and other key meetings. There are a couple of key tasks, that I have not been able to complete.

But, what a huge difference from three years ago. Our people, process, and systems have improved significantly. Folks, I understand the allure of a Solopreneur business, but is your company still moving forward when you are not?

This logic applies to you whether you are a Solopreneur, owner of a small to mid-size business,  leader, manager, or line worker. Untimely events happen to us and our loved ones.  

What is your single source of failure?

How do you prevent yourself from being the single source of failure? 

What can you start doing in 2024 to radically change what it would look like three years from now?

Ten Ways to Measure Your Strategic Plan

If you have a strategic plan, it’s time to review your annual progress. Are you able to measure its success? 

A world-class strategic plan is designed so that its progress can be measured. In our Captain Strategy terminology, you should be able to answer the following 10 questions in terms of progress over the past year:

1. Are you closer to reaching your long-term vision?

2. Are you on-track arriving at your long-term destinations? (goals)

3. What percentage of the journeys (strategies) started on time?

4. What percentage of the journeys were completed?

5. What percentage of the completed journeys met or exceeded your expectations?

6. Why were the uncompleted journeys not completed?

7. Did you celebrate your wins?

8. What did you learn from your wins and uncompleted/unmet journeys?

9. Did your strategic initiatives support your annual financial results?

10. What are you changing in 2024 to improve your performance?