Strategy hurts a bit, sometimes a lot. But it’s less risky than trying to do everything or just following a plan.
Planning gives us a feeling of being in control, strategy gives us a workable theory of success.
They are very different. Planning feels comforting, strategy feels uncomfortable. It’s easy to get sucked into planning at the expense of developing a strategy because it’s easier. Neither guarantees success but strategy shortens the odds.
I asked a client recently what their strategy was, and they explained that it was to add on more offerings to their service line.
I asked them why.
They said it was a large growing field, some customers had asked them if they offer this service and their competitors were offering it.
I probed further: “what it is about what you do, how you serve your customers, how you are uniquely organised, or your core expertise, that makes this a uniquely great recipe for your success?”
But the better question would have been: “What is the step change of increase in customer value together with a step change in lowering costs that this strategy enables?”
It’s not that the move they planned was a bad one, it might turn out to be a great one, but at this point they are making a guess, in insolation to the rest of their business, and they don’t have anything to back that up. They are simply planning to do some things that their competitors are doing. There is a great HBR video from Roger Martin where he describes the difference between a strategy and a plan.
“Planning is a long and involved analytical exercise that details out a set of initiatives that will enable to company to optimise the status quo. Strategy lays out a carefully curated set of interconnected choices that give you an absolute advantage that makes it worth the focus of resources (time, energy, money) on that combination of where to play and how to win” (Roger Martin & AG Lafley, Playing to Win).
Your strategy means that there are things you won’t be doing. It means you will be over-investing in some things and under-investing in others, compared to your competitors. There will be things that your market takes for granted that you will now stop doing.
It will hurt (a bit, maybe a lot) as things you would like to do, feel comfortable doing, and may have planned to do, get put on the back burner (or stopped entirely) as you focus on your strategic choices. I would go as far as to say that if your strategy doesn’t hurt then it’s not focussed enough.
It means that everything you do is enhanced by, or enhances, the rest of your strategic choices, there are no outlier activities, everything is done for a reason that adds up to make the strategy stronger and tighter.
With more time, there are a few further questions I would have asked:
“What are you not doing because of this strategy?”
“Where is this going to hurt?”
“What are the internal capabilities and management systems you have to invest in to make this happen?”
And, my favourite strategy question, again from Roger Martin, Playing to Win: “what must be true in order for this to be a great strategic choice” and how will you consistently test those assumptions?
Whether you need to create a strategy from scratch, develop cascading strategic plans for different departments, test your strategy for robustness or want to upskill your leaders in strategic thinking then find out more at Sarah Robertson Consulting or book a discovery call
