Creating a Great Strategy
Business May 18th, 2009Strategy is an interesting topic and certainly not an uncommon one in business when it comes to planning, decisions and organizational leadership. I am going to explore some pieces of strategy, how to develop and utilize a strategy and also extend that to other walks of life.
Timing Strategy
Strategy is all about the future and planning for things to come. Or is it? Well, I think it is more than that. Strategy certainly has the future in mind but much of strategy is about executing a plan and the methods behind executing that as well. It is about timing and controlling decisions to follow a plan at the right points. The timing of strategic maneuvers is often the most important point of strategic plan and unfortunately, timing is also the thing that gets in the way the most of following a strategy successfully. Things come up, issues occur, crisis hits and needs to be tended to, there just always seems to be another urgent thing requiring your attention and time before you can get to delivering on that strategy.
Strategy often seems like its counter-intuitive with urgent day to day ongoing work. If that is the case, I say then you have either the wrong strategy or the wrong work. Strategy shouldn’t be something that requires alignment of the planets to find the time to work on, it should be built into your day, your tasks and a regular part of your time spent.
Developing a Strategy
In order to develop strategy so that it is timed as part of your regular tasks instead of a wishful “nice to have†then you need to develop it so it aligns with expectations and so you can align your focus at least in some part to that strategic work.
Developing a strategy requires that you step back from these all too common urgent fires and things you seem to “have to do†and look at where you want to develop yourself, your relationship, your business and career. It requires you to look at plans from a future perspective and to consider the aspirations you have and what are the steps and plans needed to get there. Once of the tools I’ve learned at a recent conference for strategic planning is called SOAR analysis. It stands for:
- Strengths
- Opportunities
- Aspirations
- Results
Developing a strategic plans works well by examining each of these to ensure they are included. Stop and ask yourself questions about each of these areas in your work or life and contemplate the answers so they can be used to formulate a plan.
Strengths
Utilize the strengths you have to ensure you are involved in areas you are competent and able. I certainly don’t mean to limit yourself, as there is always value in stepping out of your comfort zone but strategy should be based on the strengths you have as that is your most likely area to advance the furthest as well.
Opportunities
This areas is to examine where there is a chance to progress and excel at. These areas might be to expand existing strengths into new areas or markets and they might be to branch into new research or areas in life that are not yet ventured into. An opportunity will offer some promise of success at the cost of some challenge to get there and is often what a strategy is formulated on.
Aspirations
Or as Jim Collins put it in his classic, Good to Great , big harry audacious goals. These are the areas that help formulate a strategy from some dream or vision of a more idealistic situation that is desirable and sought after. Aspirations don’t need to be future minded, they simply need to into account the dreams and ideas of what a better picture looks like, or the perfect situation for your life and career and company. They are the things you wish to happen and don’t need to be realistic or even reasonable. They help to steer you in a direction when developing a strategic plan and to not loose sight of the dream.
Results
This area is often over-looked and it specifically helps to focus on what exactly would be going on in the way of deliverables, results and achievements if you were already in the position of the dream or visions behind a strategic plan being in place. What is happening and what results you expect when you execute the strategic plan and successfully achieve it. These results set the stage to include specifics in a plan so it can be more easily measured and tracked. The results are also a promise of what is to come if you accomplish the plan. Results are best if they are ongoing results as well, not time limited. You don’t want a strategic initiative to immediately end when you achieve the results. You want to envision and expect that you will continue to get those results.
Simplify Your Strategy
One of the things that often is the doom of a strategic plan is that it isn’t realistic and broken down into simple actions. It’s often described or outlined as some lofty ambition that seems impossible to achieve and there is no obvious way to attach to the plan and become a part of it. This is why simplifying it necessary so it can easily be understood, accepted and engaged into. Strategy needs to become a part of normal tasks and it definitely needs to simplified so that it won’t suffer the urgent distractions offset that so easily kill strategy and meaningful tasks. A simple strategy is one that becomes regular, easy and constantly makes visible the value and progress towards that strategic endpoint. This may be by describing it in a way that connects it with your existing work or by making known the advantages of putting meaningful work before mundane and urgent tasks that occur.
Changing your mindset to follow a more strategic set of maneuvers can be very difficult. For that, you must simplify it down to easier tasks and smaller pieces so that you’re not overwhelmed.
Strategy Day by Day
With a well understood strategy and having it broken down into smaller pieces you can then examine how to build strategic tasks into each and every day. Strategy should not be separated as a seldom activity or event, it needs to fit into regular day to day actions so it becomes natural. Strategy in business needs to involve all employees in some way and engage them by being part of their work. For your own strategy in life or career, you need to ensure you have work that fits in some way your strategic plan so that you are working toward that accomplishment on a regular basis.
If your strategic actions are truly most important, its really a good idea to do them first. Work away at them before anything else and put off the urgent fires until you have done something towards your strategic goals.
Strategy Answers Tough Questions
This section goes hand in hand with fitting strategy in day by day but it specially about controlling and responding to questions with your strategy in mind. Distractions are going to come up, fires will never go away completely but you can respond to them differently. What if you use your strategy to provide the answers to tough questions on actions plans, firefighting and urgent requests. Use the strategy to respond to others when they request your time or service. Ask them or for their help to decide if it is really more important than your critically important strategic plans and why it is more important that that work if something seems urgent.
I’ve personally learned that nearly nothing is as urgent as it seems and I’ve been lucky to develop a habit of analyzing requests with a longer term mindset. I’m a product architect, researcher and product development manager in my day job and those areas tie in heavily with strategic plans so I’ve been able to adopt a strategy first attitude and response system. I rarely put attention to urgent requests because my main work strategies are about the quality products I’m involved in building and quality never comes fast or without solid planning. Obviously not everyone has this same strategy and some may actually have a strategy around responding quickly in their role so then responses and expectations change but it can still be done with a strategic factor in answering those tough questions of what and when to do things. The short answer for any of these tough questions when a well drafted strategic plan exists is to always put the things that align best with a strategy before other new or urgent items. This can only be done when a solid strategy exists, it is well understood and you are willing to execute it consistently, instead of just making it and not then actually following it.
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May 18th, 2009 at 7:26 AM
Really great post. There are so many great points in here that I don’t even know where to begin. Thanks for sharing this with your readers. I think it will help a lot of people out (including me!).
May 19th, 2009 at 7:38 AM
Good post, Mike.
I’ve always believed that a strategy + poor execution = poor strategy. Not that the strategy itself is necessarily poor, but it can only be as good as the execution – otherwise, it’s just words in a document that’s sitting on the shelf.
Your recommendation to simplify the strategy is gold.
May 19th, 2009 at 1:13 PM
That point about how “Strategy in business needs to involve all employees in some way…” is a solid concept. Any strategy that leaves out some individuals or aspects of a plan is unrealistic, as it is made hoping that complications don’t occur, or that people don’t go against the plan. It is better to have a plan that includes more variables than one that excludes them out of fear that they make the plan look ineffective. Each variable left out is a possible game-changer.
May 19th, 2009 at 4:37 PM
Positively Present – Thanks for your comments here. I do hope this helps you to think strategically then!
@Laurie – Yes, execution is the right word for it! Any kind of plan, whether its a project plan, a personal goal or some big strategy, will fail if it has no execution component in the plan itself. That should be thought about to be included and activated so that it can be properly executed.
@Armen – Thanks for the highlighted point here as well. I like how this aligns with Laurie’s comment as well in the way that it forces better execution and is a powerful way to engage people to be active in the execution of a strategic plan. Involving everyone will allow more dynamics to shift the plan at an individual level but will ultimately still contribute in the right directly to accomplish it. Thanks!
May 21st, 2009 at 11:48 PM
Thank you for the sharing your thoughts with us. Each verse was worthy pondering deeper here.
You wrote “Strategy shouldn’t be something that requires alignment of the planets to find the time to work on, it should be built into your day, your tasks and a regular part of your time spent” I needed that reminder greatly. Thank you once again an let me invite you to my blog art mirror http://artmirror.blogspot.com/ You will find my artworks there. I hope you will enjoy the pictures and I will receive your feedback.
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May 22nd, 2009 at 2:22 AM
Nice post with a lot of very useful insights.
May 23rd, 2009 at 11:43 AM
Cultivating a plan of attack and all committing to it is very important.It has to be realistic and with reasonable time of meeting the goal.
Great article,Mike:)
June 5th, 2009 at 11:46 PM
I read the post thinking over the opportunities for the realization of my new goal.Some words sounded like inspiration and god blessing.
June 9th, 2009 at 8:08 PM
Tomas – Thanks for stopping by and the specific reference of text you liked most. I love it when people point out a specific highlight like that!
Thanks as well for your comments Anthony, Bunny and Dicki. It’s great to have your repeated feedback and I’m happy to help provide impact and inspiration to you in my writing!
June 17th, 2009 at 6:16 PM
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February 17th, 2011 at 6:19 AM
Great post, but tell me, what happens if you set out with the best will in the world to create a strategy but senior management simply won’t acknowledge it?