Pulse 64: How You Finish This Year Shapes the Next
Welcome to the 64th edition of The Pulse, your weekly (sometimes bi-weekly) newsletter of Insights for over 19,000 Strategy Leaders. Elate is how strategy and operations leaders run their plans, not just build them. Read past editions here.
In this Edition:
- 🎯 How You Finish This Year Shapes the Next
- 🚀 Elate's Summer Product Roundup + What's Ahead
- 🔦 Customer Spotlight: University of North Carolina at Pembroke (Go Braves)
Read time: 6 minutes
Finish This Year Before You Plan The Next
Since I started writing The Pulse nearly three years ago, one question keeps coming back around this time of year: how do organizations finish the year well?
H2 is just getting started for many organizations, but much of how the year ends will be determined by decisions made in the coming weeks.
Last year, I wrote about the post-summer strategy reset (#47). Two years ago, I shared a two-part series on planning for the home stretch (#27). As the calendar turns to August, the plan built in January can start to feel distant.
Recently, our team worked through this with a customer whose original plan no longer matched the reality of the organization. Priorities had shifted. The operating cadence had fallen away. Teams were working from different ideas about what mattered.
Their question went beyond how to finish well:
Should we set strategy aside for the rest of the year and turn our attention to 2027?
We see this scenario play out more often than you might think.
Organizations lose track of the plan. Regular reviews stop. Priorities shift without the necessary communication. By the time Leaders recognize the drift, people no longer know where to start.
It's a mess.
The natural instinct is to avoid further disruption, finish the year as best you can, and pick things up again next year.
But that instinct is the quickest way to ensure next year’s strategy falls flat too.
When organizations do this well, I see it done one of two ways. Some need to revisit a plan that still has value. Others need to reset a plan that has been left behind.
So in this edition of The Pulse, I’ll walk through both scenarios and what leaders can do to ensure their organization finishes well.
Option 1: Start with a Plan Revisit
For some organizations, the strategy is still sound. The plan simply needs to catch up with what has changed.
A useful framework for that conversation is built around one question:
Should we persist, pivot, or pioneer?
- Persist when an Objective still supports your strategic direction and has clear goals.
- Pivot when market conditions, internal changes, or new information require a shift. The shared understanding of why the change is happening matters as much as the change itself.
- Pioneer when a new Objective needs to be added, with an explicit acknowledgment that something else may need to come off the plan.
I explored this framework in more depth in the 58th edition of The Pulse.
Revisiting the plan and asking these questions allows you to keep the foundation that still matters while adjusting the parts that no longer fit. It also gives Leaders a clear way to reorient teams around the Objectives that matter most for the rest of the year.
The next step is communication.
A Company Town Hall is a great forum that can work well when the changes are broad. Smaller plan adjustments may only require clear communication from Leaders. Either way, people need to understand what changed and why. Don't assume they'll figure it out on their own. You must take the time to proactively tell them.
Option 2: Lean into the Strategy Reset
Many Strategy Leaders face a harder situation: reviving a plan that has been forgotten or set aside because of organizational changes, market conditions, or a lack of accountability.
A pushback I often hear is that the plan is too far gone. Leadership would rather bring the ship into port with as little disruption as possible and start fresh next year.
That choice creates a self-fulfilling prophecy for the year ahead.
The value of strategy comes from using it to learn and adapt as you execute.
In fact, I’d argue the best plans point to a destination, and are reinforced by a clear operating rhythm that guides the organization.
A full rebuild may be unrealistic with the second half underway, but you can focus on the core Themes for H2 and realign around the Objectives that matter most for success.
This is also a chance to rebuild accountability at the Leadership level. Establish a clear cadence through the end of the year built around these core principles:
- Biweekly or monthly updates from Leaders on the Key Objectives
- Discussions centered on what is At Risk or Behind for those Key Objectives, and which blockers Leadership can remove
- A consistent pre-read that gives everyone the context they need before the meeting
That simple pre-read template could include:
- Three to five Operating Outcomes (KPIs) tied to organizational success
- The current status of Key Objectives
- Risks and decisions that need Leadership attention
- Recent wins and areas of Overperformance
Start at the Leadership level. Let the cadence take hold before introducing it to other layers of the organization. That gives Leaders a manageable place to rebuild discipline now, and a working foundation to carry into next year.
Strategy is a Cultural Mindset
There's a common cliche that "strategy is a journey, not a destination." I'd push back on that a little.
There's certainly truth in it. Strategy is continuous. It's not a one-and-done effort. It evolves as priorities shift and new challenges emerge.
But it is designed to yield results. The goals are real, the outcomes matter, and the organizations that execute well are the ones that never lose sight of that, even as the plan evolves around them.
Strategy is a dynamic, living part of your organization, and the strongest organizations treat it as part of their culture. They approach strategy as a way to build the organization's ability to navigate change. A culture of strategic thinking is what helps organizations not just get through the chaos, but thrive amidst it.
Regardless of where you are today, the rest of the year is an opportunity to rebuild the operating rhythm and reconnect people to what matters.
The next six months are still part of the strategy.
How you work through them will shape how your organization enters 2027.
That's all for today... have a great rest of your week.
- Brooks
What's New At Elate
Elate's Summer Product Roundup (and What's Next)
For those interested in the platform we are building, this is for you. Last week we released a product update, and there is a lot to be excited about.
Strategy Advisor, our AI engine, got smarter and more configurable. We enhanced our reporting capabilities, added new ways to visualize your plan, made risks faster to identify and act on, and much more. Plus we finally shared what's next: MCP Server and Public API.
Shoutout to our incredible product and engineering teams! Full release is linked below.
UNC Pembroke Brings Vision 2031 to Life
And for those interested in learning how organizations use Elate, we also just released a new customer story that I'm proud to share.
UNC Pembroke recently launched Vision 2031, a five-year plan with clear pillars, owners, and measures approved by its Board of Trustees. The university is using Elate to build a monthly operating rhythm and give the Board a live view of progress.
