Your Desired Future Dashboard (DFD) is where you’ll track progress toward the long-term business goal that you created in your strategic planning meeting. (Watch this short course on how to do strategic planning.)
Here’s how to create a desired future and add it to your dashboard.
1. Create your desired future statement.
Create your desired future statement with your leadership team in a strategic planning meeting. Your desired future statement is a clear, compelling statement of what you want to achieve over the next 12–18 months in your business.
You’ll use this formula to write it: “By [date], we will [create or do this], resulting in [this].”
Follow the prompts in Elite to add your desired future statement to your Desired Future Dashboard.
Here’s an example:
By December 2025, we will launch our second location in Tampa, Florida, resulting in a $1.5 million increase in annual revenue.
2. Create defining objectives and assign owners.
Break your desired future into specific, actionable objectives, and assign a leader to own that objective.
An example of a defining objective for the above desired future statement might be:
Defining Objective:
Build an initial customer base of 500 clients in Tampa through marketing efforts before the new location's launch.
Owner:
Jeff, Marketing Director
3. Create key results.
For each defining objective, set measurable key results, like milestones or numerical goals, to track progress.
For the defining objective example above, a key result may be:
Key Result:
Launch two new marketing campaigns in Tampa by February 15, 2025.
4. Create action items.
An action item breaks down the key result into specific tasks.
An action item for the key result example above may be:
Action Item:
Create and print 10,000 mailers for the Tampa marketing campaign.
5. Hold your leaders accountable every week.
Tracking your progress with your leaders in your weekly leadership team meeting helps you hold them accountable so you can achieve your goals. You can view and edit the DFD directly from the Leadership Team Meeting tool.
If you follow these steps, your dashboard will help you turn your vision into reality.