Soul Searching SPOC Analysis for Strategic Planning: Strengths, Possible Improvements, Opportunities, ChallengesIt’s time for spring cleaning and business soul searching.

Business soul searching using the SPOC Analysis is a quick and easy way to assess where you’ve been, where you are, and anticipate the future.

 

What is Business Soul Searching?

“In the business world, the rearview mirror is always clearer than the windshield.”

~Warren Buffett

  • To better understand where you are in business it’s helpful to know what got you here.
  • When you are clear about your current position you can more effectively chart the best course to achieve your company’s values, mission, and vision.
  • During the past 35 years I have guided companies through a quick and simple discovery process I call the SPOC Analysis (a derivation of the SWOT Analysis).
  • The SPOC analysis offers a great, revealing way to assess where you are right now and then to scan the business environment in order to anticipate the possibilities that might present themselves on your journey toward achieving your values, mission and vision.
  • It also identifies key areas that you may want to focus attention upon in the form of goals, objectives, or strategies.

Here’s how the SPOC Analysis process works:

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Have you assessed the success of your organization lately?

This quick and easy Circle of Success Organizational Assessment Tool (TM) will take you only 10 minutes to visually see what’s going well and what to improve in your company.

Overview of the Circle of Success Organizational Assessment Tool (TM)

 

Circle of Success Organizational Assessment ToolThe Business Energizers™ Circle of Success Organizational Assessment Tool is an organizational medicine wheel.

For several decades, I have been using this simple, yet revealing tool when I work with the organizations to facilitate strategic planning. The tool:

  • Provides leaders with a quick visual assessment of many of the ingredients that generate success and profitability in organizations.
  • Enables you and your employees to see at a glance the “flat spots” that are hobbling your organization.
  • Reveals the areas in which you are maximizing your potential.
  • Engages employees as a teambuilding exercise.

Understanding the Circle of Success

  • You’ll notice that there are four quadrants in this wheel: (1) Planning; (2) Staffing; (3) Teambuilding; (4) Processes.
  • Each quadrant has 4-sectors, or focus areas. These are 16 areas where you can invest energy and resources.
  • Superimposed on the Circle of Success is a horizontal scale identified by 10 concentric circles with zero (“0”) in the center and “10” on the outer circumference. Here’s how it works…

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Focus decision-making on what matters most; Focus your attention on your intention (Purpose, Values, Mission, Vision, Goals, Objectives, Strategies, Action Plans)Are you focusing your attention on what matters most?

Or easily distracted by unwanted circumstances?

This article will provide you valuable decision-making tips to focus your attention on what you want because…

What You Focus on Expands and Grows Stronger.

How do you decide which opportunities are most important to you and your organization with the vast number of possibilities that compete for your and your team’s precious resources?

It’s helpful to have a reliable method for determining which opportunities to focus on. Then you can focus your attention on your intention. Those things you are passionate about that will generate the results you desire.

“Passion is energy. Feel the power that comes from focusing on what excites you.” ~Oprah Winfrey

I have found that understanding scientific principles helps me immensely.

During my 35 years of professional facilitation and personal experience, I have grown to know the value and power of a universal principle that has helped me and my clients to make effective, timely decisions that yield phenomenal results.

Here is a law that I like to consciously apply to my decisions, The Law of Attraction:

  • It states that “whatever we focus our attention upon gains strength and attracts more of the same.”
  • It is perhaps the most consistent and visible demonstration of the scientific Law of Cause and Effect—where every action has a reaction.
  • In essence, what you focus on expands and grows stronger. Its law!
  • So, doesn’t it make sense to focus upon what you want, rather than upon what you don’t want?

When you focus your attention (thoughts, feelings, words, and actions) upon your intention (Purpose, Values, Mission, Vision, Goals, etc.), you send a clear message to your employees and customers about what’s important to you and your organization.

Focus on the Solution, Not the Problem

This story might help shed more light on the power of focusing on what you want (desires and aspirations) instead of what you don’t want (fear and problems). Read more

Cone of Influence-Core Purpose, Core Values, Mission, and Vision.What is the expansive Vision for your company?

 

Benefits of Defining a Clear Vision

  • A powerful Vision EXPANDS THE COLLECTIVE THINKING of your organization to encompass greater possibility and influence.
  • A lofty vision is ENERGIZING. It EXCITES everyone involved. It generates HOPE for the future.
  • An expansive Vision has everyone ASPIRE TO REACH NEW HEIGHTS with a clear picture of what you are striving to achieve as an organization.

Creating Your Cone of InfluenceTM

In my previous three articles, we explored the power of Purpose, Values, and Mission.

In this article we will “tackle” Vision (tis’ the season for a little Superbowl lingo), the other element that together forms the “Cone of InfluenceTM” of your organization.

These elements DEFINE THE DEPTH AND BREADTH OF WHAT IS IMPORTANT to your organization.

The loftier your vision, the wider your Cone of InfluenceTM.

Knowing What to Say “Yes” To and What to Say “No” To

Your Cone of InfluenceTM IMPROVES DECISION-MAKING so you quickly know what to say “yes” to, and what to say “no” to. Read more

Core Values create and enduring organizational cultureWhat does your organization stand for—your Core Values?

Create an Enduring Company Culture

Successful business owners understand how vital a company’s Core Values are to creating a company culture that results in HAPPY, PRODUCTIVE, SUCCESSFUL EMPLOYEES, which, in turn, leads to HAPPY CUSTOMERS and a healthy bottom-line.

 

“The only truly reliable source of stability is a strong inner core [purpose and values] and the willingness to change and adapt everything except that core.”

~Jim Collins & Jerry Porras, authors of Built to Last

 

Your Core Values…

  • are your guide for WEATHERING ETHICAL DILEMMAS.
  • become the fabric for weaving GOOD SOUND DECISIONS.
  • serve as your employees’ MORAL COMPASS.
  • form your lasting LEGACY.

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Strengthen Your C.O.A.R.-Clarify-Organize-Act-RealizeHave you Strengthened Your C.O.A.R. (Clarify-Organize-Act-Realize) for 2023?

Do You Want to Be a CREATOR or REACTOR?

We can choose to be creators or reactors in life. A creative life is a joyful, expansive life. A reactive life is a stressful, diminishing life.

When I find myself feeling emotionally and physically exhausted, I take a break from the chaos to refocus my attention onto something more satisfying—energizing future positive possibilities. It comforts me to remember that this too shall pass, so why not plan a rendezvous with the spectacular!

We feel most alive and energized when we are moving toward an intention/goal.

This is a great time to focus on strengthening the C.O.A.R. of your business and life by creating a new intention, project, or solution.

Here’s my four-phase Strengthen Your C.O.A.R. TM process that I have discovered during my 35 years of business consulting and project management… Read more

Wow, can you believe we’re already midway through 2021! Have you assessed the success of your organization lately? This quick and easy organizational assessment tool will take you only 10 minutes to see what’s going well and what to improve.

Circle of Success Assessment Tool

Circle of Success Assessment Tool

The Business Energizers™’ Circle of Success TM organizational assessment tool will enable you and your employees to see at a glance the “flat spots” that are hobbling your organization as well as the areas in which you are maximizing your potential. I consider it an organizational medicine wheel.

I have been using this simple, yet revealing strategic planning tool for many years when I work with the organizations I serve. It provides leaders, like you, with a quick visual assessment of many of the ingredients that generate success and profitability in organizations. It’s also a remarkable, engaging teambuilding exercise.

 

Here’s how to use the tool to assess the success of your organization:

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Clarify, Organize, Act, RealizeWant some relief during the stressful, chaotic times we are experiencing on a global scale? It helps me to remind myself that chaos is the catalyst for great opportunity, to strengthen strategic focus.

We can choose to be creators or reactors in life. A creative life is a joyful, expansive life. A reactive life is a stressful, diminishing life. When I find myself feeling emotionally and physically exhausted, I take a break from the chaos to refocus my attention onto something more satisfying—energizing future positive possibilities. It comforts me to remember that this too shall pass, so why not plan a rendezvous with the spectacular! Read more