Strategic thinking

Hello, I am Steph Plaster, Farm Management Outreach Specialist with the UW-Madison Division of Extension.  In this video, I will be talking about strategic thinking for the food and farm business and introducing the strategic planning process which you can use to establish your business’s purpose and future success. 

“Leadership is about rallying people to a better future. If your farm is at a crossroads, your leadership skills will define whether you can envision that better future and rally enough people and resources to make it happen”.  

This is how I’m choosing to set the stage today.  Strategy setting and analysis are leadership skills that help set you up for a strong future. 

It helps you pull everyone and everything you need together, motivates you to make better decisions, and introduce necessary changes while giving you the confidence to move forward and to be successful.

The takeaways of this video are: what is strategic thinking and why is it useful to practice, what is the strategic planning process and how can you use it, and why should you find your why.

What is strategic thinking? Have you heard of it before? What does it mean to you? Take a moment to pause and reflect on these questions. 

Strategic thinking reminds me of chess. You’re thinking ahead, you’re kind of anticipating what your competition is going to do. You’re exploring some risks in order to succeed. And you’re thinking big, you’re thinking deeply, and you’re thinking across time. 

You might not initially think of it this way, but it’s a visual and a creative process. When you hear strategic planning, you might think of a plan drafted over a couple days or weeks, immortalized on paper, then printed and tucked into a binder on a shelf or submitted to someone as requested. That’s just a byproduct.  The real value is in the process.

This process is about exploring your intuition, gut feeling, and experiences. It’s thinking outside the box, using your critical thinking to solve complex problems, diving into emerging issues, or themes, issues, some patterns that you’re noticing, and exploring opportunities. 

It’s considering all possible scenarios, not excluding any at first, and then anticipating possible outcomes for any actions or inactions you might take. This will help you figure out the best path forward to give you a competitive advantage and add value to your farm. 

How do we incorporate this idea of thinking strategically into our business plan and operations?  We make it actionable through the strategic planning process.  

Strategic planning is long-term in scope.  It is big picture thinking that allows for pro-active management decisions for your business.  It is a method of envisioning the future, establishing goals and action steps to achieve them.

Sometimes tough decisions will need to be made and risks will need to be taken.  Remember, “Before a business can be effective, strategy must be created, converted into policy, communicated, and made to work.”

The strategic planning process can be looked at as a continual, cyclical process we set intentionally then use in our business on a daily basis. 

We’ll start at the top in the strategic or long-term phase.  In this part, we begin to set our strategy by asking (and answering) “Where are we now and where do we want to go?”.  In the tactical or medium-term phase, we ask “how are we going to get there and what are we going to do?” .  

Finally, in the operational or short-term phase, we do what we’ve planned for and evaluate how the plan is working.

These are the steps of that strategic planning process cycle we just looked at.  We start in the strategic phase.  As a foundation, we are establishing our values and purpose to build from.  Then we craft our mission and vision statements to set strategic direction. The vision statement is what your business will look like in the future.  The mission statement explains why your business exists and what it will achieve in the near term. The strategic goals you set should be in support of your mission statement.  If you are wondering how to do this, check out our Extension Farm Management website which will be linked below.

Next you’re going to inventory resources to assess what your current situation is and what resources you have available. Then you can explore possible enterprises or new opportunities, figure out how or even if they align with your mission and strategic goals.  Then develop a plan and set it into action. 

It’s necessary as we go through this process to monitor and adjust as needed. As a reminder, goals are of little value if there’s no plan for achievement, and no implementation with ongoing monitoring and adjustment opportunities. I think with a lot of folks, goals don’t get achieved because they’re no longer useful or we’re not addressing the barriers or elephants in the room, and we haven’t gone back and said, “Okay, what’s going wrong? Why isn’t this working?” “Can we adjust this a little bit,” or maybe we need to set that goal aside and create a new one and move forward.  Goals are of little value if there is no plan for achievement and no implementation with on-going monitoring and adjustments opportunities.

If you’re just starting out, why should you invest your time and energy into this process?  You’re finding your WHY or your sense of purpose.

Building a sense of purpose can strengthen your business from the start and help you succeed.  It incorporates your values and passions into action.  Improves your motivation to help you make stronger decisions, and it helps reduce conflict between you and business partners, employees, and service providers.

In the end, your energy and resources will be better focused where you need them most.  The value in establishing your “why” comes from the process that builds your ability to pro-actively manage your business in a way that will help you achieve your goals and vision.

That’s it for this video.  Visit our Extension Farm Management website at farms.extension.wisc.edu to find additional resources to help you start your food or farm business.  We have articles and worksheets available to help you set your businesses core values and craft your mission and vision statements.  The link to those resources can be found below. Feel free to reach out to our program with questions and thanks for watching.