A few years back I spent a wonderful week at the London Business School studying strategy execution. Part of the programme involved surveying companies to find out where they were falling short when it comes to getting the big things done. The overwhelming problem area came down to what they called “shared context”.
The guts of this is that most strategies do not hit their potential because the core business leaders (who make important decisions every day) do not understand or believe in the strategy. The CEO can be a visionary mastermind, but if the troops don’t get, it the plan is doomed.
This month I was asked by a Christchurch company to help them develop a strategic direction. I spent time with the CEO understanding the main issues and we reviewed their current plan. We then agreed to run a workshop involving the leadership team so they could have input from an early stage.
Practical tip: Search for an article on-line that covers strategy at a level appropriate to the knowledge of the team and ask them to read it. Use this as a discussion point to get them thinking at the right level at the start of the session.
I find the easiest place to start is with a SWOT analysis. Everyone can contribute, and it is a good way to make the distinction between internal factors and external ones. A common point to challenge is “are you sure that is a strength compared to your competitors … explain why?”.
Practical tip: If the Opportunities seem a bit light, explore ideas on the three boundaries of business growth: geography, new products, and new target industry sectors.
These sessions should always spend time talking about the target market and what trends are influencing this. Guide the team to look further into the distance.
Other models and techniques can be used to get the team to think about things in a different way, such as Porters five forces, and the Strategy hedgehog. At this stage of the planning process it is mostly about having the conversation rather than reaching a conclusion.
An absolute must is to zero in on the organisations Competitive Advantage. What are the two or three combinations of things that give you a point of difference and can lead to superior economic returns.
Practical tip: I always capture ideas and actions on a whiteboard. Get the team to acknowledge “Yep – that’s what we talked about and agreed on”. Then take a photo and use it to type up notes. This becomes your shared context.