Gorman Houston

The Greek philosopher, Heraclitus, believed that our world is controlled by the laws of change. He has been quoted as saying that “change is the only constant in life.” That phrase is never truer than in the world of business.

Strategic planning is how a business transforms from a struggling startup to a thriving organization and it involves adaptability and innovation. Successful organizations that have developed strategic plans have fulfilled their long term visions by adequately planning their priorities and making decisions that fit into the best interests of their company.
When everything comes together at a business it’s not without having properly aligned priorities. It’s important that any plan that’s made ...

Strategic planning gives an organization the opportunity to set priorities, assign resources, and harmonize energy towards achieving a common goal. For an organization to thrive in the market today, it should invest in proper strategic planning and management practices. Involving multiple stakeholders is the only way to ensure that the organization collectively moves forward. The entire organizational strategic planning process is quite complex, with multiple steps and stakeholders. To increa...

Strategic planning is a crucial part and parcel of business management practices. It allows a business to position itself strategically for success while guiding its prospects in the market. As a business owner, investing in organizational strategic planning enables you to set goals and priorities that will define your business’s market value. Successful strategic planning should focus on five important steps and areas.
Industry assessment
The first important step to take is to assess market ...

Running a business requires tremendous levels of experience and allocation of sufficient time towards management and administration. As a business manager or owner, it is your responsibility to rally all your workers and subordinates, bringing them together to set priorities and allocate resources through strategic planning. Proper strategic planning for your business should focus on five areas of importance.
Creating vision, mission, goals, and values
The strategic planning process should st...

Gorman Houston shares the difference between strategic thinking and strategic planning.
This blog was originally posted on GormanHouston.org

Gorman Houston shares the steps to success in strategic planning.
This blog was originally posted on GormanHouston.org

Strategic planning in business is one of the core corporate activities that should be conducted on a regular basis. Good strategic planning helps a business set its priorities right, realign its resources, and strengthen its operations to ensure that it is competent enough for long term success. Strategy planning should focus on, among others, 5 key areas.
Industry assessment
Conducting an assessment of a business’s industry or area of investment gives the business owners an opportunity to ev...

Sometimes, plans can benefit from having the contributions of a wide range of viewpoints. Different people are able to envision different problems, which allow possible solutions or even alternative plans to be built directly into the plan. In other cases, however, to make cooks spoil the broth. While there are times a wide range of viewpoints can help make plans more comprehensive, there are also times when plans are better-made solo. Here are three times when strategic planning should not b...

Data has become an important factor in operating just about any business. While new IoT (Internet of Things) devices help business owners collect data, it’s also important to develop a system for curating that data. Without some way of analyzing that data and applying it to the business’ practices, it does little good to collect this information.
As a business leader, your ultimate goal should be to use data to help you promote a product that already has the potential to perform well. You may...

Leaders around the world can tell you one thing, you always need to work to be a better leader. Leadership isn’t just a title and to become a great leader and really dive into what makes you a great leader, you need to always be learning new things and working to improve your skills.
Balance
Some people should realize that being a leader is more than the position, and while some people can be good at a job, that doesn’t mean they are good at leading. Don’t fall into the rut of following other...

Planning and strategizing are two of the most critical aspects of a business – at all stages. In essence, you can’t get where you want to go if you don’t know where you want to go. Setting goals gives you targets to aim for to achieve progress. The business world has come up with many different strategies for setting and achieving goals, which are themselves constantly evolving into better, more efficient ways of doing things. Strategic thinking and strategic planning are two exercises that c...

Many times when a business is trying to create a strategic plan retroactively, they don’t look to the future of where they want to be because of the future is the last place they want to look for answers. Many times too much is going on and deadlines pile up and that causes a strategic plan get skewed in its goals and vision as you’re trying to fix the fires now. Creating a great strategic plan starts with looking to the future.
Timeframe
When creating the strategic plan, ignore everything th...

Becoming a leader is no walk in the park. It takes some time and hard work to bring a better leadership presence to a business. Many people can think they are a leader, but without the right mindset and presence, they will fall short on what it really means to lead. Here are some more tips to help develop a better leadership presence.
Truth
Something so trivial when it comes to leadership, leading a lifestyle of truth in leadership. If a leader can utilize the truth in every decision and tell...