by Peter A. Arthur-Smith, Leadership Solutions, Inc.®

“It’s foolish to only focus on today’s business; you have to keep focusing on tomorrow’s as well.”  

Harry, the company’s Visionist, and Christine, its outside advisor, were adamant about one thing: “We have to keep SuperGuard’s future in mind as well.” They knew that the moment the company takes its eye off that ball, its longer term health would be in jeopardy. Consequently, despite all their near term successes that were flourishing, they realized the importance of pulling their Strategist team together to focus on this issue at their next six-weekly Periscope Time session. It was all about Strategic Streaming.

Thinking about the future is akin to thinking about a fast flowing river – or stream – on a journey to somewhere. That river or stream flows along its most natural course and markets can be navigated in the same way, since they’re constantly flowing somewhere…unless, of course, they dry up! In terms of where your venture is heading, you have to think ahead to where your firm is going. Will it drop over a precipice like Niagara Falls? Will it flow right or left because of a more natural course? Will it slow down owing to a flat plain ahead? Will it be subsumed by merging with a larger river? Markets have similar issues to deal with. So regularly “thinking about” what’s next is crucial.

Regularized Periscope Time enables Strategic Streaming, thereby figure out its natural next phase of “preparing/ positioning” for whatever course you decide to take. Of course, these activities do not take place in a vacuum. Your Strategist team needs to regularly review industry marketing reports, attend local-regional-national industry forums, be up-to-date on local-regional-national current affairs, and monitoring trends in your own firm’s progress. From these activities, a well-informed Strategist team can then make reasonable assumptions about what direction their river or stream is likely to flow.

While Harry, as the Visionist of a somewhat sizeable, growing venture, needs to be looking up to three years ahead; he should be challenging his Strategist Team to be “thinking about” 6-12 months ahead. From spotting likely opportunities, they should then “prepare/position “ for those opportunities 3-6 months in advance. Such activities have to occur in parallel with current “implementation/execution” requirements. However, they are each done discretely in their own time space – like Periscope Time, where you take a short spell of time-out to focus on the future, while still orchestrating the present. This is an important future-thinking discipline particularly practiced by successful ventures.

With this concept in mind, Harry’s Strategist team initially “thought about” additional client possibilities for SuperGuard Traditional with Dan’s – Visionary leader for that domain – input. Through discussion they endorsed or modified the potential client expansion possibilities he envisaged for new, adjacent regional domains, as well as for Traditional’s existing business footprint: All done with an eye on operating where “red ocean” markets were not too bloodied with competitors. To make this happen, Melissa’s Promotionist team would have to increase sales activities during their firm’s “preparing/positioning” phase…or even before.

She agreed to seek volunteers among her most successful team members to take on this additional responsibility, until it was opportune to hire additional salespeople within those geographic areas. Her volunteers would be recognized accordingly through potential team leader promotions, extra vacation time, greater shares of team bonuses, and/or leading In-Team discovery sessions – once their success became apparent and not held out as carrots beforehand. With trusting relationships, this is a much more durable way of rewarding people for their endeavors; where they’re focused on effectively taking care of the task at hand rather than primarily speculating about their rewards.

Similarly with Roger’s SuperGuard Vanguard teams: He/They would aim to have an agreed number of new sites functioning within the company’s existing footprint within 6-12 months…”thinking about” this now! Again, this would mean co-opting Melissa’s team to have identified and then pursue those potential Vanguard clients 3-6 months from now. Also, during that “prepare/position” window, Dan and Roger would negotiate numbers of experienced security guards needed from Dan’s domain, as well as commence additional education for them. As this occurred, Rachel and her Humanist team needed to swing into action to help backfill sales and operational spots that became vacant; in conjunction with Dan and Roger.

Maureen, their Provisionist, would need to “think about” and “prepare for” funding and then give them the green-light for both people-hires and acquiring the required equipment.  Mark, SuperGuard’s Innovationist, would do his part to research, test and find even more cost-effective security equipment. This would require spending time with Roger’s existing teams to discover probable enhancements needed.

And so with their latest Monday morning of Periscope Time, it became clear that, “thinking about” and “preparing/positioning” for where their market river was going, enabled them to unify over the way forward. Harry and Christine had chipped in with their thoughts wherever appropriate. With this fresh vision, they knew they would have to revisit it every three months rolling forward to speed-up or slow-down their ongoing momentum. Rather than seat-of-the-pants expansion, Strategic Streaming allowed SuperGuard to be some-what ahead on its future, as well as continue executing-implementing services with existing customers. They can now flow with SuperGuard’s river/stream rather than watch it rush by them from its banks.

Flushed with a successful Periscope Time session, they couldn’t wait for their light lunch to discuss their latest experience and discuss where they needed to collaborate further to help orchestrate and build momentum. Christine and Harry were impressed with their progress and challenged them to start thinking about their next enlightened leadership cycle of envision, position, engage, collaborate and orchestrate; to build upon the momentum and flow of their chosen river.