Strategy

“Strategy is not really a solo sport – even if you’re the CEO.Max McKeown

There are many methodologies out there to generate new strategies, some very sophisticated and even computerized, while a large number of other technique are old-fashioned, classical. Our approach is to start with a blank piece of paper. We avoid cookie-cutter methodologies. Our goal initially is not to do an analysis but rather to generate and list many questions. Those questions are best brought forward by a cross functional multi-disciplined team of individuals that represent a cross-section of the company, its customers and its supply chain.

Playing it safe often means not questioning the status quo but sometimes we can only survive by being able to reverse assumptions and challenging corporate sacred cows. As managers we tend to focus too much on beating (or copying) competitors leaving us in a “me-too” mentality, which if we really think about it, gets us to nowhere but oblivion. Success comes from looking beyond the existing.
The goal is not to have a slight edge or advantage over a competitor, but rather to have a perpetual advantage over everybody because we are moving to where nobody else is willing or able to go. We need to continue to milk our cash cows when we have them while being just paranoid enough “to know” that such gravy train returns are going to succumb to competitive, commoditizing forces eager to eat our piece of the pie.

Strategy is about shaping our own future. Great strategy is brought about by the type of leadership that brings about a meeting of our minds, a meeting that is uniquely ours and that leverages our collective best. That’s why our strategy and our culture should have breakfast together. Brilliant strategy moves within our available means and skill-sets to places only we can go. Those places address our clients’ greatest frustrations in ways they cannot imagine.

One of the most important business basics is devising and maintaining a clearly stated, focused strategy. That strategy (in combination with the corporate vision and mission) needs to be over communicated to a point just short of being annoying so that everyone knows the business’s real value proposition. Leadership engages and focuses the willing workers. In our tough world using strategy is how we survive. Human beings naturally complicate our activities but we must learn to instead simplify everything. Everyone wants an “easy button”. In our fast-moving, seemingly confusing, insecure world, simplicity is the ultimate sophistication.

What will solve a customer or prospect’s important frustrations is also what will delight them. What the consumer believes is everything to strategy. The more we understand the mind of our client or prospective buyer, the more we will understand our marketplace with all its problems and opportunities. The mind of the consumer is difficult if not impossible to change. Any strategy that revolves around changing minds or perceptions is silly. Rather our strategy must be focused on what is going on in the mind of potential new buyers. If we detect confusion going on “out there” it’s time to act on our instincts. Thus, it’s not so much about strategy as about being strategists, and by that we mean acting on our beliefs as we see obvious needs and frustrations emerging in a “Me-Too Marketplace”. Good strategists are good generals. They are:

  • Flexible - adjusting strategy to the situation and not vice versa
  • Fact Finders – building a strategy from the ground up based on fine details
  • Lucky – which just means “being there” at the right place and time, ready and able to deliver
  • Mentally Courageous – in making a decision and standing by it
  • Bold – striking quickly and “pouring it on”

The quality of leadership trumps the quantity of available resources. People will only follow a bold strategist when he knows where he is going and why.

Such strategists need to be in touch with the reality of their marketplace. It’s not about growth because growth for its own sake gets us off track, all too frequently. Growth for growth stake is at the root of much business evil. Achieving a 5%, 10%, or 15% growth rate does nothing for the consumer, our buyer, or potential new customers. Goals are like dreams so we need to wake up and face the reality of our marketplace. Such goals are responsible for mucking up our strategy. It causes us to chase existing markets instead of looking for new opportunities. It keeps us from isolating the real problems “out there”, facing them squarely, and then going all out to solve them. It is the opportunities that give the strategist the right direction. Strategy is all about relieving frustration to the consumers’ delight.

Our only choice is to lead and disrupt our market or else be disrupted by newcomers better serving our clientele. Dreams are better used as concepts to bring about meaningful changes and a better life for our clientele. We become the strategic leaders only when we learn to serve more effectively, more satisfactorily, more confidently.

Building good strategy is based on several premises:

  1. A humble executive team with sensitive, listening, intelligent managers, not consultants, are best qualified to create our strategy
  2. Operations and Sales are very poor at strategy but their feedback and input are critical elements in formulating strategy; the executive team needs to carefully hear from the “skin of the organization” as well as the input of outsiders such as colleagues, suppliers and customers.
  3. An engaged workforce inspired by the organization’s vision, values and identity can be the speed and driving force behind good strategy.
  4. Industry Excellence (proprietary core competencies) is the basis for innovation; innovating outside of high-level skills is usually a waste but innovating within our skill set yields useful leverage
  5. Innovation is the most usual way of gaining marketplace preeminence
  6. Marketplace leadership based on solving consumer frustration can open the doors to marketplace dominance with favorable, daunting new rules of the game
  7. Strategies should be balanced between current performance engines (cash cows) and building future performance engines (future money trees) in ways that will serve prospects and customers better and better.

Sounds strategy recognizes that industry position is now just temporary and not enduring. The speed of change is the most critical factor when considering strategy. Gaining industry leadership and dictating the rules of the game comes as a result of knowing the consumer and serving those buyers in new, more satisfying ways. The more significant the frustration solved, the more room there is to dominate the industry and set the standards by which all players will be judged. Marketplace understanding and strategy are intertwined.

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