If you haven’t done your strategic plan yet, be thinking about—not only the things I covered recently about strategic planning—but also the fact that one of the most important things you can do is bond your team.

Here’s the thing: if you’ve got great strategies, but people are not aligned behind them, the likelihood of getting them done is slim to none. Now, what happens in most strategic planning sessions is that people actually go sideways and they build resentments.

I worked with a bank team years ago, and the CFO and the head of retail did not make eye contact for about six months after the strategic planning session!

In fact, what should happen is there should be a bonding that happens there and a clear understanding that everyone on that team is 100% accountable for all the results.

And so there will be no, “Gosh, those people in marketing didn’t get it done; those people over at commercial didn’t get it done; hey, those wealth management people didn’t get their piece done.”

If you’re on the executive team, you are 100% accountable for every outcome that you list in your strategic plan.

So creating a bond during that strategic planning process and working through the issues is as important as creating phenomenal strategies with great alignment.

Getting that done is going to create a phenomenal year for you next year, and I look forward to hearing your great stories about how your team bonded at strategic planning this year.