After engaging with a chohort of enthusiastic participants (not pictured above) in our recent Strategies for Growth Seminar at SMU, I was reminded how important and how overlooked the simple SWOT analysis is. And was inspired by “Where the WILD things are” to reconsider how to go about strategic planning.
I believe SWOT the simplest and most powerful tool in your strategic pack. Sure… it doesn’t do everything, but it creates enormous insight into your organisation… if done properly. But it’s seen as tired, boring, old hat… it’s from Stanford Business school in the seventies, isn’t there something newer? Even though tried and true (like this stale simile and me) I still find SWOT analyses to be light on content and insight … so here’s how to boost the strength and insight into your strategic planning in three swift moves.
Firstly, a great way to avoid the everyday and humdrum when generating your SWOT is to reframe your SWOT; here are your four new SWOT questions:
- What are important things we avoid doing (that we should do) because they are Scary for our business?
- What are Wild and creative ideas our competitors or other relevant companies are doing that we need to consider?
- What can we do next year that would be Outrageous and bold?
- What can we do in the marketplace that will be the most Threatening to our competitors?
Yes, try a SWOT strategic thinking exercise looking for ideas that are:
- Scary
- Wild
- Outrageous
- Threatening
This new type of SWOT analysis is good for at least twenty minutes of new thinking at your strategy meeting to get people out of the humdrum of strategic planning.
Once you’ve instilled some excitement, go through your ideas and assess them and bringing them back into the business …
Try it… it’s fun. Next post is what to do with this information.