You might be in an organization that is all about the tactical. It’s a “what’s next?”, action-oriented, go-go-go culture. There are certainly benefits to this kind of environment. Inaction is avoided, and things get done. Your organization is generally pretty focused and performance-oriented. However, it comes at a price.

Heads-down focus means heads-down, which means you’re not looking up to see where you’re going. You don’t reflect on where you’ve been or how you got there. You don’t think about the vision of where you want to go and how to get there; you just plow ahead. If you’re headed in the wrong direction, you’ll find out sooner or later, but usually later.

The tactical will squeeze out the strategic nearly every time. Some organizations, particularly the larger ones, try to overcome this with dedicated resources focused on the more strategic efforts. Unless those strategies can be executed in isolation, though, they still won’t accomplish their goals. So the question becomes, how can you get the strategically important tasks done in an environment that lives and breathes the tactical?

One method: Convert the strategic into the tactical.

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