
Now is the time to take good strategy seriously in your business…
How do you know that implementing a good strategy will work for your business?
To put it simply, you don’t…but if you have no strategy or a bad strategy, what have you got to lose?
Good strategy saw Admiral Nelson defeat the Franco-Spanish ships against the odds at the Battle of Trafalgar and saw Steve Jobs save Apple and turn it into a $1 trillion success story.
It’s easy to avoid the hard work of building good strategy. But putting time and effort into this can put your business on the road to a sustainable competitive advantage.
The 4 steps below may sound obvious, but most businesses fail to take all 4 steps – what will you do?
1. Stop thinking that the goals and objectives you have for your business are the same as good strategy – goals are great, but they’re little more than wishful thinking without the 3 elements of good strategy outlined below.
2. Diagnose the significant challenge your business is facing – what is holding you back from reaching your business goals? What is the key challenge you face? A diagnosis can simplify the issues in front of you and allow you to see the ones that are business critical. In his book Good Strategy / Bad Strategy, Richard Rumelt states:
“In business, most deep strategic changes are brought about by a change in diagnosis – a change to the company’s situation.”
3. Choose the guiding policies that give focus to your actions – this is an overall approach to help you overcome the obstacles identified in the diagnosis. Your guiding policies will ensure that you stay focused on how you should respond.
4. Work out your coherent actions to leverage greater success for your business – these will help you overcome the challenge you’ve diagnosed and ensure that you follow your guiding policy. The actions should be clear, coherent and easy to understand. They should all work together and not against each other.
Click here to learn about the importance of good strategy to your business survival, growth and future success.