(Check out the free Strategic Readiness Inventory© at the bottom of this blog)

Thinking about all the ways we are impacted during this unprecedented time, one thing I am lamenting is the loss of our annual vacation. I have been reflecting on my childhood family vacations. We would visit our grandparents in Florida in August, think oppressive heat, but we had the pool and the ocean.

We traveled in a car with 460 air conditioning (4 windows down and 60 miles an hour). I can feel my skin sticking to the vinyl seat. For the younger generations, “yes people used to travel that way”. It was sheer torture and I am sure it was torture for our parents who were barraged with the interminable question “are we there yet”.

Not only am I reminded of that time because of forgone vacations but because right now, it seems like one of those endless road trips from my childhood. Many of us are asking “are we there yet?” We wonder when will this endless ride be over and many feel trapped in the family wagon, boiling in the heat, stuck to the vinyl seats listening to the same songs repeat on the AM radio. Again for the younger generation there was a time when we only had AM radio. At this moment I can hear Glenn Campbell’s song Rhinestone Cowboy echoing through my head.

What do you do when the car games are no longer a distraction, when each mile of the highway seems to be a repeat of the previous miles and you are fighting with your siblings whose sticky arms are touching yours?

I don’t know how we survived those vacation death marches, just as I am not sure how to survive this journey. The one thing I know is that we did survive the family vacation and we will survive this.

In the coming months I want to provide you with this series as a way to create new thinking around how to pivot strategically, especially in the face of so man unknowns. Check out the principles I created called the Principles of Strategic Engagement. Feel free to use them with your team, modify them or add your own. It will start you on the path of thinking what it means to engage strategically.

I will strive to be in service by providing three things. First, a way to shift our strategic thinking. I will also offer tips including TPQ’s Thought Provoking Questions© and tools you can use in your strategic journey whether it is full blown strategic planning efforts or just trying to see through the fog.

A great place to start is the Strategic Readiness Inventory ©. This free tool will help you start thinking about how to pivot into strategy with all the uncertainty and engage in deeper conversations about where to go from here. I welcome you to the conversation and the community.