Business Matters: My Slow Journey Toward Strategic Thinking

I have never been a star at strategic thinking, either in my life or in my business. I would much rather operate in the tactical realm of immediate action (“Need to get envelopes and toner from OfficeMax”; “Oops, gotta deposit this check”). I always prefer action to thought.

But I know that business owners need strategic vision, right? I’m on the path now, thanks to Kit Brown-Hoekstra’s CIC SIG webinar in April 2014 on “Finding Your Path: Strategic Planning for Small Business.” Kit provided a valuable overview of the important concepts of strategic planning and many tools to document a business owner’s strategy. I was most fascinated by her mention of the book Body of Work: Finding the Thread That Ties Your Story Together by Pamela Slim, who also wrote Escape from Cubicle Nation: From Corporate Prisoner to Thriving Entrepreneur and blogs at “Escape from Cubicle Nation.”

Slim proposes a series of steps  to help you think about your body of work. In “Define your roots,” I was able to draw on my knowledge of my StrengthsFinder assessment. “Choose your work mode” was easy: I’ve been self-employed for 23 years, preferring to work autonomously in my bunny slippers with my dog at my feet. “Create and innovate” gave me energy to sign up for a class at my local Small Business Development Center titled “How to Build a Product Road Map.” And I’m still defining and facing my fears after reading her chapter “Surf the Fear.” (I have several steps left after that.)

As I work my way through Slim’s workbook, I see that nearly everything I’ve done has been woven together by the thread of my passion for language. Early memories of language include reading to my father; being encouraged by teachers to read and write; and attending advanced math, science, and language classes in high school courtesy of President Kennedy and Sputnik. My degrees are in English and I started teaching English classes at age 21—and I even have a t-shirt that proclaims: “English major—you do the math!”

And now, as I plan my next five years in business, I am grateful that this retrospective on my past passion can now guide me in my next venture: monetizing my curriculum of writing classes that I have delivered in many corporate and government settings. My strategic plan is to create educational products (e-learning and licensed training content) that can reach more learners and bring me more passive income. I have had many false starts on this path, but now, bolstered by recognizing my body of work, I’m ready to rise above those ashes and open myself fully to this work.

It’s clear to me that in order to move ahead, I have to look back at what (and why) I’ve done the work I have. And it’s more than a little eerie that as I began writing this post, my randomly mixed playlist presented Judy Collins’ My Father, an early song where she sings about a woman thinking of her father, a coal miner: “My father always promised us that we would live in France; we’d go boating on the Seine and I would learn to dance.” The character’s father never was able to take his girls to France, but many years later, the character sings: “And I live in Paris now; my children dance and dream.” I have loved that song since I first heard it in 1969, and now it shows me how random events in our lives are really connected.

I’m glad that I now recognize the thread that forms the pattern of my body of work. Instead of perceiving my business career as a series of separate events, I can see my unconscious direction and open myself to prepare for my next professional adventure.

Elizabeth (Bette) Frick, PhD, ELS is president of The Text Doctor LLC in Boulder, CO.  She teaches technical writing in corporations and edits medical documents. Bette is an STC Fellow and has been independent for 23 years.