Resetting for Growth: Strategic Focus After Summer

The days are get­ting short­er, the evenings cool­er, and the pace is start­ing to pick up again. Sum­mer has a way of loos­en­ing the grip — a lit­tle more time with fam­i­ly, a few more long week­ends, maybe even the lux­u­ry of ignor­ing your inbox for a while.

But now, the ​“back-to-school” feel­ing is in the air. Sep­tem­ber is like the real start of the busi­ness year. The dis­trac­tions of sum­mer are behind us, and the run­way to year-end is short. This is the moment to get crys­tal clear on where you’re going and how you’ll get there.

If you treat fall as a strate­gic reset — rather than just div­ing back into the dai­ly grind — you can fin­ish the year strong and set your­self up for a pow­er­ful start in the new year.

So before you let the post-sum­mer busy­ness take over, take the time to zoom out. Look at your plan, your pri­or­i­ties, and your next big moves. And to help, here are some of our most-read and most-impact­ful blogs on strate­gic plan­ning to get you back into growth mode.

1. The Dilem­ma of Big­ger vs. Better

Many great com­pa­nies stall because they fall in love with being bet­ter at what they already do, instead of get­ting big­ger. This blog dives into how even high-per­form­ing orga­ni­za­tions can get trapped in oper­a­tional improve­ments — and how to rebal­ance your strate­gic plan to focus on long-term growth by adding new cus­tomers, prod­ucts, or markets.

2. The Pow­er of a Fortress Bal­ance Sheet

From lessons with Jim Collins, this blog unpacks how a strong finan­cial posi­tion (“oxy­gen can­is­ters”) gives you the resilience to make smart, long-term moves rather than react­ing in cri­sis mode. It’s about build­ing cash reserves, secur­ing access to cap­i­tal, and diver­si­fy­ing rev­enue streams — a per­fect mind­set for plan­ning the year ahead.

3. Does Your Strate­gic Plan Real­ly Dri­ve Growth – or Just Improvement?

It’s a trap many suc­cess­ful com­pa­nies fall into: shift­ing from growth mode to improve­ment mode with­out even real­iz­ing it. The result? The growth engine qui­et­ly pow­ers down while lead­ers get con­sumed by inter­nal projects. This blog shows you how to spot the warn­ing signs, rebal­ance your CEO time, and ensure at least a third of your long-term objec­tives are tru­ly about increas­ing your ​“Xs” — the core unit of your busi­ness — rather than just mak­ing the exist­ing machine run smoother.

4. How to Get the Most from Your Strate­gic Plan­ning Process

Even the best strate­gic plan­ning process­es can loosen over time. When you’re deep in the trench­es run­ning your busi­ness, it’s easy to lose sight of your com­pet­i­tive advan­tage. This blog out­lines six proven ways to tight­en things up — from choos­ing the right frame­work and facil­i­ta­tor, to set­ting SMART goals, to cre­at­ing an account­abil­i­ty-learn­ing loop that dri­ves con­tin­u­ous improve­ment. If you want to take your plan­ning from good to great, this is your play­book for stay­ing sharp and aligned year after year.

5. The KPIs That Actu­al­ly Dri­ve Growth (Hint: It’s Not Just Revenue)

Rev­enue growth can look great on paper, but it doesn’t always mean your busi­ness is tru­ly expand­ing. This blog breaks down the three KPIs that mat­ter most for Real Growth: increas­ing your num­ber of Xs (the core unit you sell), improv­ing prof­it per X, and rais­ing the per­cent­age of A‑Players on your team. When you track and improve all three, you’re not just grow­ing — you’re build­ing a stronger, more sus­tain­able business.

Chal­lenge

As you get back into full gear after sum­mer, take a day — or even just a few hours — to zoom out and review your plan for the rest of the year. Ask yourself:

• Is our #1 deci­sion for the year clear — and are we giv­ing it enough time?
• Are we inten­tion­al­ly learn­ing and evolv­ing as a lead­er­ship team?

Sep­tem­ber is a nat­ur­al inflec­tion point. Use it to reset, refo­cus, and realign so you can fin­ish the year strong and start the next one even stronger.

Resources

• 45 Minute Scal­ing Up Masterclass
• Case Study: The Lit­tle Pota­to Company
• 10-Year Mas­ter Plan