Strategic Planning for Women-Led Companies
Here’s the truth: most strategic planning sessions are TERRIBLE. Chances are you've sat in a room where everybody looks at numbers on a whiteboard or a flip chart while the leader, or the facilitator, is trying to drag everybody along to get rallied around the concepts that they are looking to receive alignment for.
The whole thing is painful.
I'll be the first to admit that I have been the one to facilitate these types of strategic planning sessions for my own company and other companies trying to base it off of a system that was built by men.
What was wrong with that?
For one, we as women are intuitive, and we must feel aligned with the work before us. Women know exactly what they are looking to accomplish, and none of that is addressed by the popular strategic planning processes that are regularly used in businesses looking to scale to the multi-million dollar mark.
LOOKING FOR A DIFFERENT DIRECTION
Now I’m in the position of scaling up to seven figures again, and I’ve been thinking deeply about what I want to do differently this time around. Last time, the experience was filled with hustle and struggle, but it never felt aligned to what I wanted or envisioned. I was doing what I was “supposed to do” according to the rules that other people told me great CEOs followed.
And I hated every second of it.
When it came time for me to scale to seven figures again, I started looking deeply at why it was so terrible before. I turned to popular books used by many companies, and I dreaded diving in. They’re filled with these super masculine words like “process,” “analyzer,” and “accountability.” None of them speak specifically to women and how women want to run their businesses.
THE GENDER DIFFERENCE
To put it plainly, I think most strategic planning systems are broken for women. What makes us scale is learning, purpose, collaboration and the collective daily habits, routines, and supports that take place. Women need permission to make mistakes and permission to be frustrated and learn from those frustrations. In short, women need everything that is not in the pressure cooker where strategic planning sessions live.
The masculine words that float around these sessions — data, process, accountability, etc. — don’t, in my opinion, reflect what makes a woman-owned business inspiring. In fact, I don’t even believe they are things that make a company succeed or fail. A company succeeds or fails because of the thoughts and attitudes of the leadership team about the plan for the company and the daily habits they have in place to support that plan.
PUTTING INTUITION INTO ACTION
As I faced scaling another company, I started to think about what was really important in creating our plan. When I thought about the annual, quarterly, and daily planning that I was going to be leading my team through, I realized that the most important part was creating the vision, mission, and values of the company and the processes, results, and target revenue I expected.
Why are these things so important? Because your team needs to know where the goal line is. They need to know what winning in their job looks like. As a leader, you need to know what winning looks like and how to clearly communicate that to every person on your team.
At my annual planning session, I spent the bulk of the time asking the team deep questions about who we need to be. Who do we need on our team? What does our future self look like? How do we need to show up for the team to produce the results we want?
Then we had really wonderful conversations around the question: What are the feelings and thoughts we need to choose every day to produce the results we want?
It was a super powerful conversation, and it was the first time I left a planning session feeling vulnerable. I worried that my vulnerability would affect the way they see me as a leader. However, I settled into this new way of strategic planning, and I felt so connected to my team that I knew intuitively that I was on the right path.
HEART OVER EGO
What came from this strategic session with my team were some honest and vulnerable moments for all of us, but especially me. I was able to tell them about how some fears are bubbling up as I work to build a business again. I welcomed them to let me know what they’re scared of, too. We then discussed what we want to choose instead of fear and how we want to make decisions based on love and vulnerability instead of ego.
There was the answer: I never liked strategic planning sessions because it felt like they were all about ego. You put this number up, and everyone is driving to that number. Disappointment inevitably ensues. People are frustrated and upset, and they don’t feel seen.
You see, the masculine strategic planning process operates from the principle that the team is working toward a goal for the sake of the goal. As a woman leader, leaning into my feminine, I believe you work towards a goal because of who you get to be on the way there.
In this way, we are fully aligned with the vision, and it works like rocket fuel as we build momentum toward our goals.
Looking to put joy and inspiration back into how you lead your business? Listen to our podcast today to find other ways you can do all this and more while using what makes you unique as a woman to lead your team and your company.
