Nov 30, 2011 | Management, Strategy
The detail of Strategy development is different for every situation. There is no template that is able to account for the nuances that exist, despite the claims to the contrary.
There are however quite a few sensible and easy to say but usually hard to do things that should feature in your considerations.
1. Go to where the work is done. Too many businesses treat strategy development as an exercise to be completed in isolation, assembling lots of data and PowerPoint slides. There is no substitute for going to where the work is done and realistically examining the issues. In lean parlance, “go to the gemba“, talk to a few customers, some who you would like to be customers, and a few outside the boundaries of your current market aspirations.
2. Identify the assumptions that do not get questioned, those that often make up the foundation of a strategic exercise, and then question them, to ensure they make sense. The “what business are we in” question and “every customer buying a 2mm drill really wants a 2mm hole” observations are a key to strategy development, use the opportunity to make sure you are focusing on the right customer, and what it is they are really looking for.
3. Use stories and analogies to make your points. People relate to stories, they understand analogies, and they are way more fun that moving data around a spreadsheet.
4. Do some scenario “what if” thinking, and make them relevant, but a bit far out there to get the juices going. Several years ago doing a strategic exercise with a client whose business was significantly impacted by the $A, for both the import of raw materials, finished product, and competitive offerings in their market, we did just this exercise. At the time, the $A was around $US.70, and we spent some time discussing what would happen at all exchange points up to $1.20, almost inconceivable at the time, but facing them a few short years later.
5. Make the strategy “porous” in the sense that as new information, situations, and opportunities emerge, that can be absorbed into the strategy, facilitating adjustments in resource allocations and priorities, without compromising the purpose and values of the business.
In the end, strategy is about choice. It is as important to articulate what you will not do as it is to articulate what you will. Making intelligent and robust choices only comes as a result of gathering and understanding data and combining that with the insights and wisdom that are often found out in left field.
Nov 28, 2011 | Change, Collaboration, Communication, Marketing, Social Media
The internet is choked with lists, 10 ways to do this, 5 best ways to handle that, bloggers put them in because a list is a proven driver of blog traffic. People seem to want the core of an idea to be trimmed down to a set of bullet points, perhaps it is just more digestible that way.
I have certainly done it a bit, with 12 facebook tips for SME’s, How to make twitter useful, 6 rules for strategic alignment, and many others, some my lists, others a link to the lists of others, each for one reason or another seemed to be useful and worth sharing. In the case of the lists I created, mostly they emerged from work I was doing for a client at the time, and the process of assembling a list assisted me to order my thoughts, and so hopefully, helped a few others in a similar way.
Today, the “Uber-list” from Forbes magazine, which has a whole feature on the worlds most innovative companies, the worlds 2000 leading companies, the most powerful people, the richest, and so on.
It makes for interesting reading, almost wherever you make your dollar, there is some reference to the industry, who is who in the zoo, and what they did right.
Thanks Forbes, something for everyone.
Nov 27, 2011 | Communication, Leadership, Personal Rant, Social Media
The digital world has taken over, but the emergence of social media tools that host a lot of pretty low grade stuff sometimes overshadows the huge impact the tools of the web can have, sometimes life-changing and even saving, impacts. Just look at the role played by social media during the floods in QLD, the disaster in Christchurch, and the changes happening in the Middle East.
Consider the site Ushahidi for instance, born in crisis, and evolving in a manner that has, and will continue to make a huge difference to many peoples lives in times of crisis. Such a tool would have been impossible without Tim Berners-Lee, his colleagues and subsequent innovators.
The value of just one site like Ushahidi, and the useful utility of social tools makes up for all the junk that appears to be the other side of the coin, making up the volume.
Nov 25, 2011 | Strategy
Assumptions are the backbone of all strategic initiatives, indeed, most day to day activity. Often these assumptions are implicit, they make sense, we do not even question the assumption, by default they become as good as a fact.
Really good strategic and design initiatives turn assumptions into facts by finding supporting data, and in the absence of the data to make an assumption a fact, it remains an assumption, subject to continual scrutiny.
A really useful first step in any planning process is simply to ensure that any assumptions are exposed for what they are, assumptions, subject to change in the face of new information .
Nov 24, 2011 | Customers, Marketing
The case for employing intelligent people, and letting them get on with their jobs exercising common sense has been made again and again. In this lovely example of the hubris of rules, Safeway in Honolulu ensured they stuffed up by following a voluminous rule book, the substitute for trust in the common sense of your employees.
What damage has this stupidity done to the Safeway brand, and will any amount of advertising about how they care for their customers and their families wipe out the lasting impression forged by the news story of their stupid insensitivity and lack of care.
