One of the first Rockefeller Habits to Success is to make sure that your team meets frequently for strategic thinking.  The recommended period is monthly.

You may be saying, “check this one off because we hold weekly staff meetings”.  My challenge to you is that while weekly staff meetings are a must, you will need to hold a longer monthly meeting after every 3 weekly staff meetings to focus on more high-level strategic issues.

The main purpose of the monthly meeting is to tackle one major strategic challenge or opportunity and not simply review status and the numbers.

This meeting should be looking forward. STRATEGY.  This should be a high level look at the future of your organization.  I suggest you have every executive on your team prepare and be ready to advocate for tackling what he or she think the top strategic challenge or opportunity facing the organization.  After briefly discussing all of the potential ideas to tackle, a single challenge and opportunity should be selected as the key topic for the meeting. The challenge with the biggest impact and the opportunity with the highest return should be the ones to tackle in depth including the formulation of a follow up plan.

Where are we going? What is the plan to move us forward?  What is the game plan?

It seems like a simple habit to master and yet it is easy to get caught up in the day to day challenges of business and forget to step away and examine the plan.  This Rockefeller Habit should be practiced even if the only employee in your company is you.

The benefits of adopting this and other Rockefeller Habits will create a culture of accountability, assure team alignment, clarify goals and priorities and focus on results. I recommend that you identify the habits not already implemented and start implementing the few you think will provide the most positive impact within your organization.

Attend a FREE WEBINAR on how RadioShack could use these habits to prevent from being Good to Gone.