What do great companies do well in crafting and implementing strategy?
2016-05-12 Laura Vargas
I have many dreams. One of them is figuratively and literally strategic in nature. This dream is simple: agile crafting, revisiting and implementation of strategy. This dream is about strategy development and implementation that contributes to inspiring employees to fulfil or exceed strategic goals. It is refreshing to see many companies leaving aside clunky and expensive strategy processes that mostly leave people disenchanted and devoid of energy for the most important part of the process: strategy implementation. However, we have many steps to take before widespread agile and inspiring strategy processes.
Looking at the marketplace, we can learn about what great companies are doing well in crafting and implementing strategy. These companies keep speed and agility in mind while understanding clearly the long-term focus. Within this balancing act of speed and quick wins with a long-term focus, I organize the learnings into three areas:
- People
- Framework
- Mission, Vision and Values
People are the heart of sucessful strategy crafting and implemention. Great companies are bult by people with desire to collaborate, imagination, motivation, and who are not insulated by success . These team players can balance excellence and growth, are self-driven and self-organizing, less concerned with politics and focused on results. Strategic thinking is a competence required by all and not reserved for an elite few. Similarly, leadership is a service shared by all rather than the job description or responsibility of a few. These leaders execute with stamina, make decisions, create clarity and come back from setbacks ready to share and act on what they learned. In doing so, they reflect common values in action.
The framework for the strategy starts with the customer and brings together growth, creativity and appetite for risk and failure. Companies exist to serve customers. Profits and shareholder value are derived from serving the customer with excellence. Therefore, customers need to be the starting point and the strategy should reflect clearly how the company is going to satisfy customer needs with excellence. In the strategy process, great companies reflect their hunger for growth, creative thinking, innovation, appetite for risk and a learning orientation to failure.
Mission, vision and values are commonly understood, reflected in everyday work and clearly answer the why question. Inspiring strategies go beyond profits. Strategies that get people excited outline the plan to achieve financial results but do not stop there. These strategies help connect the company also to bigger and broader objectives, beyond profits. For example, how to satisfy a market need with safer, cleaner and more sustainable services, solutions and products. Inspiring strategies outline the plan to reach goals that have a clear purpose and answer succintly the why question. Therefore, the uniting and driving force is why we are doing what we are doing and then we focus on what we need to do to get there.
How are you crafting and implementing inspiring strategies?
I have many dreams. One of them is figuratively and literally strategic in nature. This dream is simple: agile crafting, revisiting and implementation of strategy. This dream is about strategy development and implementation that contributes to inspiring employees to fulfil or exceed strategic goals. It is refreshing to see many companies leaving aside clunky and expensive strategy processes that mostly leave people disenchanted and devoid of energy for the most important part of the process: strategy implementation. However, we have many steps to take before widespread agile and inspiring strategy processes.
Looking at the marketplace, we can learn about what great companies are doing well in crafting and implementing strategy. These companies keep speed and agility in mind while understanding clearly the long-term focus. Within this balancing act of speed and quick wins with a long-term focus, I organize the learnings into three areas:
- People
- Framework
- Mission, Vision and Values
People are the heart of sucessful strategy crafting and implemention. Great companies are bult by people with desire to collaborate, imagination, motivation, and who are not insulated by success . These team players can balance excellence and growth, are self-driven and self-organizing, less concerned with politics and focused on results. Strategic thinking is a competence required by all and not reserved for an elite few. Similarly, leadership is a service shared by all rather than the job description or responsibility of a few. These leaders execute with stamina, make decisions, create clarity and come back from setbacks ready to share and act on what they learned. In doing so, they reflect common values in action.
The framework for the strategy starts with the customer and brings together growth, creativity and appetite for risk and failure. Companies exist to serve customers. Profits and shareholder value are derived from serving the customer with excellence. Therefore, customers need to be the starting point and the strategy should reflect clearly how the company is going to satisfy customer needs with excellence. In the strategy process, great companies reflect their hunger for growth, creative thinking, innovation, appetite for risk and a learning orientation to failure.
Mission, vision and values are commonly understood, reflected in everyday work and clearly answer the why question. Inspiring strategies go beyond profits. Strategies that get people excited outline the plan to achieve financial results but do not stop there. These strategies help connect the company also to bigger and broader objectives, beyond profits. For example, how to satisfy a market need with safer, cleaner and more sustainable services, solutions and products. Inspiring strategies outline the plan to reach goals that have a clear purpose and answer succintly the why question. Therefore, the uniting and driving force is why we are doing what we are doing and then we focus on what we need to do to get there.
How are you crafting and implementing inspiring strategies?