Alicia McKay's Blog

Predicting the future is impossible, but all your goals live there, so you can’t avoid thinking about it.  We need plans to channel our time, energy, and money despite having little idea what the next few years will hold or how well our ideas will work.

Predicting the future is impossible, but all your goals live there, so you can’t avoid thinking about it.  We need plans to channel our time, energy, and money despite having little idea what the next few years will hold or how well our ideas will work.

Our hopes, dreams, and plans live in an unpredictable future. We need plans to channel our time, energy, and money, but we have no idea what will happen in the next few years or how well our ideas will work.

Winging it is a death wish in 2025. If you don’t know what you want, the next 10 months are going to swallow you whole. Never fear: strategy will save you.

I love a good argument, especially as part of a strategic planning process. In a good argument, everyone’s point of view is fully and respectfully heard, and our ideas and options become stronger with testing and refinement. Arguments contribute to the three most important characteristics of any strategic decision process: fullness, fairness, and focus.

The minimalism bug bit me over the break. I threw out, donated, or sold hundreds of household items - clothing, furniture, kitchen implements, garage... stuff (what IS all that stuff?) - and it feels fantastic.

Last Friday, I announced I was retiring Not An MBA, an executive leadership programme I founded in 2021. It's been a wild ride. For the most part, the response has been overwhelmingly positive: comments, messages and emails wishing me well for the next thing, celebrating the Not An MBA journey and a few expressing disappointment at not being able to do the programme while it was running.

Are you aiming too low?

What are your most important goals right now? Do you have them written down? If you do, take a moment to pull them out—I have some words to share with them. If you're not up for putting your personal goals on the line, pull out your latest strategic plan.

In November 2022, the south Adelaide suburb of Mitcham re-elected Mayor Heather Holmes-Ross to their progressive Council. Mayor Holmes-Ross and her CEO, Matthew Pears, decided to seize this second term to elevate the Council’s strategic thinking.