If you’re like me, the holidays hit waaayyy too quickly after the last Halloween candy is gobbled up. But before you get completely caught up in holiday mode I would love for you to carve out one hour for you and your team to conduct a strategy audit for the year 2022.

Yes, I know…you’re thinking, “I don’t have time for one more thing this time of year!” But don’t you worry. I have the questions for you to ask. It’s simple, and it won’t really take that much time. When you’re done, I guarantee you’ll be both surprised and encouraged by what you and your team have found.

Start by walking your team a through a guided visualization where they think back to January 2022. Then progress though all of the months. Give each team member two minutes of silence to scribble down whatever things come to mind. It can be a team member’s support, a milestone reached, that challenging grant submission, or whatever. Anything goes.

Just like in life, you want to record the TA-DA moments (the positives) and the “not there yet” moments. They all count.

Then, guide your team to complete this worksheet together. It will help you sort out all those things the members scribbled down. You’ll examine three dimensions for the year 2022 – results, process, and relationships. What were some of our results? (Did we meet our goals for the year?) Where did we make some process changes this year? (How did they work out?) What was the quality of our relationships, both internal and external? (Do we need to work on these?)

Get it all out on paper, and then when you finish looking at all three areas…ask two final questions:

What insights are emerging from our conversation today?

What do you see as a next step for YOU in 2023?

That’s it…you’ve just completed a strategy audit that is going to set you up for great success in 2023. I want you to commit to carving out an hour to do this SOON. If you wait until January, you’ll have forgotten some of those critical moments and memories. Collect them when they’re fresh!

ISI Consulting is cheering for you all the way!

Stay sharp,

Holly Hayes, President & Founder

P.S. This can be used as a personal audit form as well. I recently did one and realized I need to be a little nicer to my husband. Note to self.

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No, I don’t mean flying saucers. I’m talking about Un-Finished Objectives. UFOs.

Don’t you do it. Don’t set one more goal, create one more plan, or make one more resolution until you’ve checked to see if you have any UFOs lying around your office. I know, as each year begins, you feel obligated to start something new. Everybody is doing it. It seems almost obligatory. But resist the urge. Because I guarantee you have some unfinished objectives gathering dust.

Pull out your strategic plan, action plan, or the compelling narrative you sent to a funder, and revisit your goals and objectives with your team. Your goals are probably still relevant and require little changing. And you probably completed some of your objectives, but what about the rest? The UFOs.

Instead of starting with a completely new plan, revisit those UFOs, and see which ones still need to be done, which ones need to be revised, and which ones need to be removed completely. This will take 45 minutes to an hour max with a small team. So why not host a UFO hunt sooner rather than later. I guarantee, key actions will be identified that will advance those goals that your team cares about. Cheers to eliminating one to two UFOs in your organization in the first three months!

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