During a strategic retreat, the Chairman of the board was so impressed by my non-conventional approach to strategic planning that he labeled me Mr. Strategy. Here is what he said verbatim: “Mr. Strategy told us to focus on identifying our distinctive competence and developing capabilities to leverage it. I agree. He has also told us about focusing on a few things, by emphasizing that strategy is about making choices about how to win with customers and the stakeholders against the competition. And he is right. We have been trying to do so many things, which has made us lose our…
The 10 common errors in many strategic plans
Many companies have strategic plan documents merely for showoffs. Some companies write strategic plans for compliance purposes. Others use the documents to get loans or equity. For example, a business seeking loan financing may hire any advisor to write a strategy and business plan for purposes of obtaining a loan. Once the loan is got, the document is usually parked or put in the drawer. In many companies, however, the strategic document is left to rot in the drawers because few people understand it. Many “strategic documents are written like research papers.” The documents are like literature reviews of business…
Is your strategy executing you?
“A poor strategy executed well is always better than a great strategy executed poorly.” — Michael Porter Strategy means choice. Unfortunately, many companies have a document labelled strategy. But when you ask “what is the strategy in your strategic plan” all they show you is a research paper full of great internal and external analysis using models like SWOT, PESTLED, Michael Porter’s 5 Forces and lots of the stuff. When you keenly analyze, you discover a missing link: lots of analysis but no relationships. Strategic choices are not properly informed by the analysis made. The measure of a great strategy…