All day long, you hear challenges and create plans to navigate through them. Briefs, decks whatever. You put in writing the plan for how to get from the place the organization or brand is in today to where it needs to be. Where are you today? Are you where you need to be? If not, how do you approach that challenge? Here's an idea for you: write a brief for you. Strategists are brilliant at framing a problem and mapping the way out, but often pretty terrible at doing this for themselves.
I spent some time writing a brief for myself this spring and found it very helpful. I took a few hours to do what I do for brands and business, clarified the challenge, described the obstacles and charted some potential paths forward. This helped me reframe things I had been worrying about a little to much in the greater context of where I could potentially go, and helped me map the path to how to get there.
Want help with yours? Find me on Twitter or email me and I'd be happy to see where you are. I'd be interested to see what sort of approach you take and how the briefs are shaped. I'll share interesting stuff with the group (and hide the personal information, obviously).
This month, I was extremely lucky to spend an hour talking with Katie Dreke. She is working through a brief of her own and talked me through how she is considering what her next move should be. Listening to this episode, you'll hear audible pauses where I believe I was just trying to keep up. Katie thinks deeply and expresses those thoughts simply.
Links:
Katie Dreke on Twitter
Katie Dreke on the web.
Read the transcript here: http://adampierno.com/finding-your-way-with-katie-dreke/
Finding your way with Katie Dreke