Kara Steffen · The Optimal Horizon
Onward, one horizon at a time.
Every organization has an Optimal Horizon. So does every person. It’s the next purposeful point you’re building toward, in your work, your organization or your life, and the place from which you can see what comes next.
I’m Kara Steffen. I write, speak and lead workshops about reaching our fullest potential, as people and as organizations, by always knowing the next horizon and moving toward it.
The idea
A direction, not a finish line.
We tend to describe change as a project with an end: finish the plan, land the role, hit the number. Those milestones matter, but people and organizations doing meaningful work don’t stop there.
The Optimal Horizon isn’t a promise of perfection, and it isn’t reached all at once. There are usually several horizons between where you are and where you want to be. Each one creates meaningful improvement on its own, and makes the next horizon possible.
For an organization, the horizon is where its people, processes, technology, data and finances work together. For a person, it’s where your purpose, your work, your relationships, your health and your resources pull in the same direction.
The whole ideaThe framework
Assess, Align, Build, Strengthen.
Four steps, each a little higher than the last. They work the same way whether you’re leading an organization or taking stock of your own life.
Step 1
Assess
Take an honest inventory of where you stand today.
Step 2
Align
Decide where you’re going, and why it matters.
Step 3
Build
Name the horizons in between, and take them in order.
Step 4
Strengthen
Commit, follow through, and look again from higher ground. Then, onward.
The philosophy
Onward.
You don’t have to see your Optimal Horizon to move toward it. You can navigate toward it from where you’re standing; sometimes you have to reach the next horizon to clarify what comes after it. That isn’t a failure of planning. It’s how people and organizations grow, adapt, and build toward a more aligned future state.
The goal isn’t to arrive and stop. It’s a state of constant forward motion: knowing the next purposeful horizon for your personal or business mission, reaching it, and moving on from higher ground.
From the horizon, you can say
- I know where I am.
- I understand what’s happening.
- I know where I’m going.
- I know what needs to happen next.
Essays
Recent writing.
Short pieces on the Optimal Horizon and the questions it raises.
All essaysYour Own Optimal Horizon
Every organization has an Optimal Horizon. So does every person. How Assess, Align, Build and Strengthen work when the organization you’re leading is your own life.
You Can’t See Your Optimal Horizon From Here
Why the best direction for an organization only comes into view one horizon at a time, and why that is good news.
An Optimal Horizon Is Not a Vision Statement
A vision statement describes an aspiration. An Optimal Horizon describes how an organization’s people, processes, technology, data and finances need to work together. The difference matters.
Work with the idea
Bring the Optimal Horizon to your team.
The Optimal Horizon is a way of thinking, not a single service. A talk introduces it to a room; a workshop puts it to work with your team.
Align
Optimal Horizon Workshops
I bring your team together to define your horizon and commit to the path, with the Reflection Workbook in hand.
Workshops & WorkbookIntroduce
Talks and keynotes
An introduction to the Optimal Horizon for conferences, boards and leadership gatherings.
SpeakingAssess, Build & Strengthen
Assessments and implementation
Organizational Assessments and hands-on implementation through my firm, The Change Up Group.
Visit The Change Up Group
Stay in touch
Notes from the horizon.
An occasional letter from me with new essays, workshop resources, and news about the book when it’s ready. No more than once a month.
The next horizon
What’s your next horizon?
Whether you’re planning a conference, a leadership retreat or a board conversation, I’d be glad to hear what you’re working toward.