Most leaders are great tacticians, yet they struggle with the concept of strategy. Throughout my career I have attended many “Yearly Strategy Sessions”, events that I was proud to be a part of and excited to attend. We would get many company experts and thought leaders in the room with the vision of setting the strategy for the next year to meet our pre-determined growth goals and diversify our business. Most years there was a lot of effort to write down items and plans that we would execute in order to take the company to the next level. Some years were better than others, yet most years we would do monthly follow up meetings and check the boxes to say that we were working the strategy with very limited success. It almost became a CYA meeting where everyone would get in a room and say we have made progress, knowing everyone had gotten into the planning files the day before to pencil whip the progress. It wasn’t that we weren’t invested in the company or were bad contributors, the problem was we were truly just grinding through a mile long list of tactics that we and our teams had to accomplish for our “Strategy”. In all reality, we had not done strategy at all, we had simply listed a bunch of good ideas that we thought would move the business forward. We recorded a bunch to tactics.
Throughout my later years in publicly traded companies, I was blessed to attend multiple leadership programs and I began to learn that most companies are struggling to find a process of strategy that yields true results. Most times company growth is based on a great product and customer facing process that allows for market growth. A company with a great process will grow organically in their niche business, focusing on their current customer base and collecting a few new customers along the way. The house of cards falls apart as soon as the company begins to diversify into white spaces, moving into a markets that are unknown. Leaders that manage the P&L down to the penny (especially in public companies) expect their highly efficient and profitable organizations to start diversifying into new markets using the same process and same team, stealing energy and focus from what the team is really good at. Most often times, the mid-level managers are asked to take on more work in a mode of “We just have to win one opportunity, then we will staff up” in a market that no-one knows and where the financials don’t make sense, causing extreme frustration and apathy amongst the team, leading to departures of top talent due to the chaos within.
This is why a true STRATEGIC PROCESS is so important to an organization as it grows. This process gives leaders and their team members a common playbook and dictionary to work through, vetting change and diversification plays in a safe environment that then parlays into a tactical plan with real metrics and true vision. New businesses ideas and changes to current business operations should not be carried forward without a Strategy.
I hear the words “We need to put together a strategy” everyday in companies I work with, yet when I say help me understand what you mean by strategy, most individuals can not give me a process or framework that they use to build their strategy, they simply shift to the tactical items they want to accomplish to create their desired result. When I ask them about the keys to winning with their new strategy, what their sustainable competitive advantage will be, and what the winning financial metrics will look like, the conversation gets very quiet. When I ask why would you take that path, a defensive posture appears and frustration sets in. This is easily solvable. The team members you have hired are talented, they know their niche and their industry, we just have to supply them a vehicle to answer the most important questions in strategy. This will give them a guiding light to reference back throughout the tactical plan to make sure they are working to accomplish the high level goals, and if they are not it will give them a nudge to get back on track.
We need to set up our team members for success, give them the tools to build a winning strategy, and support them throughout their tactical plan. We can do this, it just takes a step back to leap forward.
Thank you for taking time out of your day to spend with me, I look forward to interacting with you in the future.
Until then live with passion and take care of one another. God Bless.