We hear a lot about strategy, lately. Everyone I know seems to be ‘strategising’, the organisation I work for has a strategy and most company websites greet you with a strategy. Getting to the core of it, these strategies amount to little more than wish lists and/or road maps. These are about what people and organisations want to do and how to measure whether they are getting there.
Strategies worth developing are not simply about what we want to do; they are about what others are doing and our positioning in this. Once we have done that we need a good plan.
“Strategies worth developing are not simply about what we want to do; they are about what others are doing and our positioning in this. Once we have done that we need a good plan.”
I think that is key. None of us are working in a vacuum and we need to take other people’s strategies into account otherwise we will, at best, have a difficult time and, at worst, fail.
@Pat: Thanks, Pat. Glad that your experience confirms my observations.
I made a strategy that I want you and John to look at. It’s because of you guys. Thanks. Take a look at today’s post. I think you will like it.
@Jai: I loved the post and John did as well. We love the logo even more – you will bot really know how much ‘me’ it is untill we meet. Well done on the strategy – my fveeling is that with a good plan and persistence it will work a miracle :).
I guess I feel that strategies are worth developing regardless whether they are comprehensive and perhaps even fully-actionable. I think the process has value. However, I know where you are going with this. If you stop only with a wish-list, you are robbing yourself of part of the benefit of having a strategy to begin with.
@Roshawn: I am a bit of a purist in all this, you see. I think that people should know when the are generating ‘a dream’, a strategy, a plan etc. There is loads of value in each but only when properly used – like any tool. This is important for individuals – for organisations it is even more so; I wasted countless hours in meetings with peole not being able to comprehend why their strategy didn’t work when the answer was very simple – it focused only on what the organisation wants to achieve, not on what the others are doing and how to navigate through it.