Having no time for strategy is a common refrain I hear from countless professionals -- including those who attend our graduate programs and executive education courses. They are learning new theories, approaches, and tools, but are worried about falling back into old patterns when they return to the office.

I found this article that has many ideas, but I also wanted to share some of the specific things I do to "make time for strategy":

1. It's an every day occurrence/mindset: being relentlessly focused on value, identifying the problems I'm truly solving, and aligning resources (not just me!) to capture that value are an every day/all-the-time thing.

2. Educate EVERYONE on the team about our context: vision, mission, values, history, you name it. No matter the role, everyone knows where we've been, where we're going - and WHY.

3. Schedule time with my team: I crowd source it. Next week, we have a "think tank" on a potential strategic opportunity for our organization. It's much easier (and more valuable!) for me to schedule a 90-minute meeting with some thought starters and/or background info than to find time myself (which I will inevitably fill with emails and will not be as rich). Bonus, I now have people who are bought in. See point #2 above for making this work. p.s. I'm not the only one scheduling these -- my team does it with their big ideas, too.

4. Make time to take things OFF my plate: Every single week I have a to-do list item (lists work for me) that reminds me to stop and think about what can leave my plate -- because it's no longer valuable, because someone else can/should take it on, whatever the reason.

5. Acknowledge some seasonality: I typically teach in the Fall, and I take it very seriously. That means I have less discretionary time that semester. I know that some of my bigger/more strategic experiments are much more likely to take place in Spring and Summer.

How do YOU make time for strategy?