I attempt to engage operational executives in thinking about strategy. Often this results in glazed looks and feet shuffling… “it’s beyond my pay grade”… is the response..”it don’t do strategy; strategists do strategy”.
But as leaders – architects of our plans, coaches of teams and story-tellers to enable individuals to see meaning we must become strategists.
There is a lot of anecdotal evidence indicating that managers, even those with (shared) responsibility for managing a business area, spend very little of their time thinking strategically about the development challenges they are facing.
Of course strategy is defined as the pattern of actions and decisions aimed at obtaining a specific objective- exploring external opportunities and exploiting internal advantages. The strategy is NOT the goal, but the proposed steps to reach that goal.
Those individuals and organizations that actually invest time on strategy actually increase their chances of success for three reasons;
- Having a defined a goal and a strategy to reach it, this plan decreases the risk of “ZigZagging”. Without a medium to long term goal and objectives organisations and individuals may work in one direction for one period, change their ideas and then work in another direction. ZigZagging often leads to wasting resources.
- In organisations, having clear and shared goals and strategies increase the chance of working TOGETHER towards these goals. Without sharing, there is the risk that some people and organizational units will work in one direction while others might take a different direction. This substantially decreases the chance of making an impact. Agreed strategy can work as a coordination mechanism.
- People are motivated by purpose. Knowing where we are going and why we are executing certain plans increases the chance that managers and the employees will commit.
Heres my take on a robust one-page strategy diagram.
In the normal run of business, you can associate 4 fundamentals for good strategies and strategists:
- The Strategist needs to have the ability to formulate clear and future-oriented goals and objectives and effectively communicate this
- The Strategist needs to have a profound understanding of the competitive environment
- The Strategist needs to be able to objectively appraise own (the company’s) resources and capabilities; even more they need to clearly identify and utilise which are sustainable advantages
- The strategy needs to be accompanied with effective implementation and measurement systems
As most strategists are not “born” with the knowledge and ability to apply the above, analysis normally plays an important role in the strategy formulation process. Hence referring to this as “strategy analysis” and “strategic management” to describe the activities associated with strategy formulation and planning.
So in just 4 simple steps you can create a sufficiently robust strategy to focus and align your organisation to achieve success.