SmartWork Bulletin

A compass tells you your direction. A map shows you the planned route. Terrain awareness keeps you in the real world.Most leaders lean on one at the expense of the others. The best use all three.Without a compass—your values and purpose—you drift. Decisions get made for the wrong reasons, and it’s hard to know when … Read more

You’ve got your compass — your values, your north star. You’ve got your map — your strategic plan, built as a testable hypothesis. Now comes the part that humbles every business owner: the terrain. You start moving, and everything changes. A competitor opens across the street. A supplier drops a bombshell. A customer segment you … Read more

In the last post we explained how a compass (your values), a map (your strategy) and the terrain (the real world) work together to give leaders direction.Now we zoom in on the map and treat it like a road‑trip itinerary: a series of educated guesses that you test, adjust, and sometimes reroute as the landscape … Read more

Every organization plans with the future in mind—but the future never shows up exactly as expected. That’s why great strategy isn’t just about building a plan. It’s about knowing how to navigate. One of the most useful metaphors for strategic planning is understanding the relationship between the compass, the map, and the terrain: The Compass … Read more

This will begin the discussion of creating a strategic plan. The most important thing here is that there are many ways to create a strategic plan. Before anything else, I’ll say this – use what works for you. A strategic plan can be as detailed or general as you need it to be. So let’s … Read more