4 steps to creating a strategy that will turn your dream
goal into a reality.
As a Humanist I take problem solving very seriously. I want
to accomplish my goals and not just dream about them. I wrote a blog post a
little bit back on how to gain clarity of purpose. Today I want to talk about
how to create a strategy that will actually work.
Recently I have gotten involved in anti-bullying work as a
result of publishing my book – The Bully Vaccine. One of the things I’ve
learned and that we all pretty much knew is that schools and teachers and
administrators, however well-intentioned they may be, are not well equipped to
help kids end bullying. There are some systemic reasons why this happens that
I’m not going to get into here.
Suffice it to say that IF we want to help reduce or eliminate bullying, these systemic problems need to be resolved. Wanting to change the way schools operate as it relates to bullying is a noble goal. The real question is how we want them to change and what we can do to make sure those changes actually occur. Without a solid strategy we would be working aimlessly.
Deciding on a goal is easy. And most people are pretty good
at that. The difference between people who are successful at actually creating
the desired change and those who don’t is the ability to create a strategy.
Most people don’t. They just start doing whatever they think
will work based on what they assume the problem to be and hope for the best,
fail, get discouraged and decide that nothing can be done. Here are the steps to creating a strategy that will work instead.
1) Laying the Ground Work
Someone who is strategic instead decided on a
goal and then does a bit of research. How are things set up right now. Why are
they set up that way? What are the goals that drove the system we have right
now. Without knowing that – you won’t be able to develop a strategy that works.
2) Research
The next bit of research is to find out what actually works
to solve the problem. What doesn’t work and what makes things worse is also
important to know so that you can avoid those mistakes when you plan your
strategy. Most people don’t take this
step either. They just assume they know and never bother to challenge whether
what they think they know is even so. As a result, their strategies fail; they
blame others and give up discouraged.
3) Having a Plan
Once
you know what you are dealing with and what you need to do to fix the problem,
you can develop a plan, what exactly are the changes that need to be made? What
do you want to keep of the old system and what needs to be changed to
accommodate the best practices that are known to work. It is only once you have a plan on what you
would like to see happen that you can start to develop a strategy for how to
accomplish it.
4) Strategy
Your
strategy is the steps you need to take to implement the plan. Who do you need
to talk to, who is in charge of the policies that need to be changed, what is
the process for creating and implementing those changes. If your strategy has
to do with education and disseminating new information, how are you going to
disseminate it to the most possible people?
Having a goal is just the beginning. If you want to be
successful, you need a solid strategy of how to get there.
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