I’ve been running a strategy project with a client. We set out the company’s biggest priorities for the next few years, including clarity about what needs to have been delivered two years from now.
We then talked about what need to happen next. The client told me that the current year’s plan was already ‘baked in’ and so the key actions would need to wait until next year – six months from now.
That’s not how successful strategies are delivered. If they’re sufficiently strong and compelling, your existing plans and priorities should change. Immediately.
In other words, you need to connect your future strategic ambitions with your current activities. Otherwise, they’ll never be achieved. Here’s the way to do it:
- Ask yourself what you want to have delivered and achieved, say, two years from now? What new products and services? What new skills and capabilities? What new investments? What will you have got rid of? What will be different?
- OK, so what must you have achieved 12 months from now?
- Right, so what needs to be different six months from now?
- What does that mean you’ll need to have done in one month’s time?
- So, what do you need to do right now?
Strategy isn’t long term. Strategy is now. How are you connecting your strategic goals with your current actions?
Off The Record: You Can Get It If You Really Want by Jimmy Cliff
Rome was not built in a day
Opposition will come your way
But the hotter the battle you see
It’s the sweeter the victory
Now, you can get it if you really want…..
Getting Your Innovation Strategy Right
Business leaders are constantly exhorted to innovate. But what kind of innovation should managers pursue? The Innovation Strategy Matrix helps you to answer that question and get your innovation strategy right.