Like that wisecracking Bugs Bunny, you didn’t take that left turn at Albuquerque and now you’re off-track. Or perhaps you did follow the plan and it didn’t lead to the desired destination. When driving, you let the GPS reconfigure the route to make sure you arrive at the intended destination. When it comes to your business, recalculation is up to you.

Know when to recalculate

Perhaps you ascribe the failure to reach your business goals to impatience. It’s possible. However, The Bridgespan Group notes key indicators that serve as signals to reassess and recalibrate your strategic plan: a change in the funding environment, the creation of new policies that significantly affect your business, new competitors that alter the environment in which you operate, and changes to organizational leadership. Changes in business circumstance mandate a pause to review the company’s destination and direction and to make the adjustments necessary for growth and continued profitable operation.

Don’t reinvent the wheel

Business plans quickly become outdated, if only because the company’s progresses status changes shortly following action taken in accordance with that plan. Updating the company’s business plan, strategic goals, and process of actions to get there does not require starting from scratch—unless you don’t already have a business plan. The process involves reviewing the existing plan and making the necessary adjustments, which means that some or even most of the aspects of the current strategic plan need little or no change.

When reviewing your company’s strategic plan, Lucid Meetings suggests asking these two key questions:

1. What have we accomplished since we implemented the strategic plan? (Or a time frame that makes sense to the group.)
2. In what ways has our current reality changed since we put together our long-term goals?

Once the leadership team has answered those questions, move on to the following issues:

1. What are the outcomes the company must deliver?
2. What outcomes have we achieved or delivered? What have we failed to complete?
3. What potential opportunities can the company undertake and guarantee delivery?
4. What potential opportunities can the company undertake, but cannot guarantee delivery?
5. What does the company want to do?
6. What does the company do not that you do not want to do?

The answers to these may mandate a change in goals or a change in how you achieve those goals.

Manage risk

No one person or team makes the right choice and takes the right action every single time. Companies with “zero tolerance” policies or cultural attitudes toward error stifle creativity, courage, and innovation. Such attitudes force staff to work in lockstep to unchanging rules that don’t adapt to an ever-changing business climate.

Executives must understand that not every attempt will succeed beyond their wildest dreams. Some will crash and burn. Remember New Coke? That didn’t work out so well, but Coca-Cola® survived. The question is not whether every initiative will succeed, but how much risk the company can accept.

The process of assessment and recalibration positions a company to achieve its desired outcomes and reduces the risk of failure by defining common goals and a clear plan to achieve those goals. The Heggen Group specializes in helping companies develop and revise those processes for feasible expectations and realistic delivery goals. We can help your business, too.