The job of CEO is interesting, I do absolutely nothing critical to the business on an operational or daily basis, but yet I do so much and I am juggling too many things with absolutely nothing to show. It’s pretty interesting and unique. So what is my painted picture for 2021?
I had an aha moment yesterday while walking to the office and stopped to snap a picture realizing that the river running through Denver captures my job perfectly. In a city of buildings and hustle and bustle there is also a place somewhat serene. It mimics my role as CEO. When I stop and think about it there is all sorts of chaos going on around me, while really I have no real operational job and my job is to think bigger and outside all the commotion. I need to be the serene river running through a big city. The world, and life, moves fast and this is a great reminder to take a breath, we all expect a lot and push for a lot.
This time of year it is ultra important to disconnect from the chaos. I do not have a strong love for long term planning as the best laid plans are only good the day you finish them. You cannot predict the world well enough and there are too many moving pieces. To balance this we are going through a Painted Picture exercise to plan for 2021. This exercise is to think out into the future and paint the picture of where you see the company then, without worrying about how you are actually going to get there, just the end. We are working through this by first doing a SOAR (Strengths, Opportunities, Achievements, Results) exercise. This is to baseline the team, with the most important aspect being the opportunities. The teams paint their own pictures and then once we all agree on the final painting, they can plan how to get to where they want to be and can iterate through the year to cover each opportunity and eventually get to the picture they drew at the start.
All too often people do yearly planning and then follow the plan to a “T”, if all variables were held constant this would totally work but really, who had pandemic on their 2020 planning? Each team should instead focus on the end and then they can be agile throughout the year to get to their ideal end state.
What is your painted picture for 2021?Â
