Strategic Planning

Mention "strategic planning" and most folks will respond with a yawn. It's not the most glamorous or exciting thing to do. I guess for police officers it ranks a little above getting a root canal and far below being involved in a foot chase.

However, it is absolutely essential for leaders to engage in a dynamic strategic planning process to establish their organization's direction and ensure our efforts are properly aligned toward what it is we are trying to achieve.

Chief Boatner and the three Assistant Chiefs joined with the other city department heads and their assistants today for a full day of strategic planning at the new Hilton Garden Inn at Lakeland Linder Regional Airport. Nearly 50 participants reviewed the importance of strategic planning and then revisited the City's plan to ensure our vision, mission, values, and goals were properly aligned to set a course for our entire organization. This was in preparation for the City Commission's retreat scheduled for next month.

We also addressed how we can best measure our performance to ensure we are achieving the right outcomes. You may ask why this is so important? Think of strategic planning and performance measurement like this...

How else can you know "the score" of your business if you do not plan for how you are going to win the game? It's a lot like playing a game of basketball without a game plan and never counting the points each team scored. How do you know if you won the game?

The same applies to our city government. How do we know if we are achieving our intended outcomes if we don't first know what it is we are trying to accomplish and then take the time to measure our results?

We look forward to reporting our results to the City Commission next month.

- Asst Chief Bill LePere