I led a strategy meeting with a client this week, reviewing the firm’s current strategy and setting a new over-arching direction. At one point, as the executive team were settling on a particular choice of strategy – to broaden its focus from healthcare to wellness – one of the directors asked, “How do we know if this is the best strategy?”
This is a reasonable question, but the truth is that you never really know if your strategy is the best one. In fact, there are likely to be many ‘good’ strategies available to you at any particular point in the time.
But you must choose, because without that choice you have no basis for organizing, funding and driving the subsequent actions. Strategic success is based on delivering a series of consistent, mutually supportive actions and decisions. Otherwise, you simply have competing projects that, in the end, only serve to cancel each other out.
What are the big strategic choices that your business faces? And, by making a clear choice around one strategic direction (even if you’re not sure it’s the ‘best’), what benefits will a set of clear, coherent and focused actions bring?
Off The Record: Good Riddance by Green Day
Another turning point, a fork stuck in the road
Time grabs you by the wrist, directs you where to go
So make the best of this test and don’t ask why
It’s not a question, but a lesson learned in time
© Stuart Cross 2019. All rights reserved.