Connect the Dots, Continuously

Today I reflected on how I enjoy "connecting the dots" - be it connecting people with one another for business or personal reasons, or linking business ideas with other concepts to execute. In dusting off a book I received at an Executive Leadership Forum a few years ago called "Connecting The Dots" by Cathleen Benko and Harvard Professor F. Warren McFarlan, I was reminded of why we often look to connect the dots:

"Aligning Projects with Objectives in Unpredictable Times"

I hate to say it, but aren't we always in unpredictable situations? Shouldn't we always be looking to align our projects with objectives we want to accomplish, and thus, always look to connect the dots?

Are you connecting the dots for both yourself and your business/organization you either manage or work within? Here are some tips on making those connections to create tidal wave results:

Connecting the Dots for Yourself

1. Document your strategic goals/objectives for your life.
2. Review the list of things you do for yourself/not for your organization.
3. Does each activity you do for yourself map back to your personal strategic goals and objectives? If not, can you stop doing it? If it does link back, can you find other things to link it to so to make a bigger impact?
4. Who can you connect with, or what can you add to your activity list, to help accelerate meeting your goals/objectives?
5. Make it a weekly or monthly goal to connect with someone new and help make a connection for someone else via an introduction.

Connecting the Dots for Your Organization

1. What is your organization's strategic vision and mission? If you don't know it go find out what it is or recommend getting this figured out asap!
2. Review the projects and activities you are working on.
3. Does each project/activity take your organization one step further to meet the strategic vision and missiong? If not can you stop doing that project/activity? If so is there a way to accelerate the project?

Even though this may seem like a "new year's resolution" alignment process to go through, in actuality you should be doing this type of alignment much more frequently - once a month if not once a week.

Why not begin to ask yourself the above questions when you plan out your goals and objectives for the week?

If you can continuously connect the dots with yourself and for your organization you will be in a much better position for the uncertainty faced every minute.