Climb to the top of the stairs and improve your company’s physique
Building a strategy carries the connotation of being engagement heavy. And it can be, if you let it. Whether you are a small business or a fortune 100 company you will benefit from having one.
A strategy is simply an articulation of where you want to put your emphasis and business focus over a certain period of time to obtain a certain result.
That result can be anything from boosting growth, improving your margin, developing new products, attracting skill, or preparing for selling the company – you name it (and in a more malign corner: as an intelligence agency in one state, your strategy may be to undermine the citizens’ trust in the government of another state …).
Faced with larger transformations one should always have a strategy prepared and communicated.
When you have determined the desired result of executing your strategy you can, through research and analysis, begin to shape the tactical and operational activities that will align the overall direction of the company (or department) towards the end result.
Let’s say you have a dwindling reputation in customer services and want to improve your customer satisfaction ratings for general reputation reasons, and to enable a boost to your upsell.
First and foremost you want to engage in an analysis to unveil the key elements of the dissatisfaction e.g.:
- Is your product malfunctioning or generally not working as intended?
- Is your product absolutely brilliant but you haven’t been able to explain to your customers how to maximize usage – is it too complex (UX issue)?
- Is your customer support unable to respond to factual questions due to training or mindset deficit?
- Are your customers unable to obtain support through the channels they expect?
This type of analysis will in some cases lead to discussions in the leadership team where leaders may, out of human nature, defend their own areas of responsibility from the uncertainty of getting the strategic attention required to change or improve. If this goes on to the extent that it halts progression of the analysis results then get external assistance to facilitate the strategy meetings. If at all possible gather hard empirical data to determine the tactical and operational activities to underpin your strategy.
Don’t hesitate to engage larger staff groups when building the strategy. Ask them what they, in their opinion, think you do well and not-so-well in the area you wish to see results. It may offer a refreshing angle that you did not consider.
Sometimes it can take a while to get all the data together for you to be comfortable with making decisions. But please be pragmatic about it. If you are the operational leader or the chairman of the board don’t get caught in “analysis paralysis” i.e. make sure that it doesn’t go beyond what is necessary to determine a direction.
When you have your tactical and operational plan ready get your entire staff on board with the plan. Kick it off loudly so that everybody in the company, whether they are directly impacted or not, understand that “all of us” are expected to support the company in meeting the goals.
There is a certain covenant made when you communicate the strategy. You, as the board or the CEO team, publicly commit to reaching the goals by communicating them openly. It ensures leadership focus and tenacity. Equally important, the operational teams should communicate the propagated sub-goals per department and announce the milestones as and when reached. There is huge strength and driving force in open commitment to goals.
If you are the board, you may want to increase the number of board meetings during execution of the strategy without being an obvious nuisance to the CEO team. Be supportive.
If you are the CEO, be extra visible and communicate status regularly to sustain momentum and offer leadership support in areas that have difficulties executing.
Want to know more?
Contact:
Soren Madsen, info@leadwithpropriety.dk