Balance Strategic Objectives and Tactical Actions

I have placed a lot of emphasis in the Pearls of Business blogs on the “human element” and the importance of strategic and visionary thinking by having clearly defined business liquidity objectives and a personal dream.

Given that, it is equally important to balance that thinking and approach with day-to-day tactical thinking so you accomplish your desired, successful, stepwise growth decisions, keeping in mind the strategic vision. The point is this: having a clearly defined strategic objective must be balanced with tactical actions so those actions take you to the longer term organizational objectives.

I’ve gained insight into the importance of “balancing” my counseling between strategic and tactical thinking. It comes into play in every aspect of your business including balance in the leadership team strengths, balance in contract diversification, and balance in working width and depth.

There are 3 “balance” lessons that have broad business applicability.

1. Successful Balance Leads to Giving Back. As you and your organization grow, paying constant attention to fiscal strength leads to profitability and organizational value. Balancing that with visionary focus and a positive operational culture will result in an outcome that leads to helping others and giving back.

2. Running on Data with Vision in Mind. When it comes to company operational philosophies there are two opposing tendencies: either focus on the numbers and data or focus on vision and “where we are going.” From a leadership perspective, balance in both those areas honors both views resulting in “vision coupled with data,” which leads to successfully accomplishing your ultimate goal.

3. Balanced Leadership Team. This thought substantiates the above point. Success is gained by surrounding yourself with people who have strengths that result in a balanced leadership team who all understand “holding hands and running.”

I have personally experienced what can happen when the balance is skewed.

At one point when our company was providing government support services, we were approached by two employees with a product suggestion that, while interesting, would move us into a commercial market and away from our current direction and strategic goals. In an attempt to honor the suggestion, and after what we thought was solid data research, we decided to move ahead.

Unfortunately, our decision was based more heavily on the emotional side of things and we discovered that we hadn’t evaluated the product market strength deeply enough. After expending considerable time and money, we decided to shut the project down and get back to our initial strategic and tactical objectives. At the time we didn’t have well-defined balance in our thinking.

Have you experienced some examples of success in emotional versus data decision balance?