There you are, lying on an inflatable sun raft in the middle of the ocean, Pina Colada in hand, enjoying the good times. Then, all of a sudden, the water gets wavy, the changes in the global economy rain down on you, and next thing you know you have been flipped out of the raft. You find yourself in the water. Swells rising all around you. Your stomach getting weaker by the minute. No life jacket. Too far from shore to call for help, and then …

Chomp, your lack of a clear-cut strategy bites you - you know where.

The Avoidable Void

Sad to say, but this type of reality is all too common.

Despite well intentioned leaders and executive teams, who know that the myth can't last for ever, organizations everywhere find themselves surviving without a clearly defined, well-articulated strategy.

The feeling in the organization is that everything is under control.

Things will continue to work, and rebound in the same way they always have.

Chomp. No such luck any more.

Henry Mintzberg, Bruce Ahlstrand, and Joseph Lampel have seen this situation all too often, and in their new book they reveal that "Strategy Bites Back" with a vengeance. Organizations must honestly evaluate their current strategy, or lack thereof, and make a concerted effort to create and commit to a solid, well thought out, new strategy.

If they don't, they could find themselves swimming in shark infested waters.

Chomp.

Death to Strategy

Long live strategy!

Consider this a primer on a new version of strategy - 'Strategy 2.0'.

Organizations today are on a quest to reinvent or reimagine themselves, and with that comes the need to re-invent their strategy. Gone are the days of month-long strategic planning projects which lead to over-complicated, over-engineered strategic plans which were often well over most employees' heads and certainly disconnected from their day-to-day reality.

In the past, the math often worked out to 80% planning and only 20% doing.

Today, an organization's strategy should be 20% (or less) planning, and 80% (or more) doing. This is not to say that strategies should be poorly thought out. On the contrary. The plan should spell out the rules of the game, not necessarily the sequence of the plays.

In the past the plan was the map, today it should be the compass.

Therein lies the essence of the major, fundamental and ground-shaking change in the mindset required to create the plan and an even greater change in what it takes to implement it.

Just when you thought it was safe

Organizations are well past a crucial new crossroad and yet many have forgotten to take the turnoff.

Here is what we mean.

Think of the way things have changed. Children of a decade ago lived through the much slower and more linear transition from LPs to cassette tapes, to CD's. It was a different medium but it differed only in terms of the packaging. Today's children, on the other hand, will very likely never purchase a tangible fixed music 'platform' but will instead focus their interest and energy on discovering new and real time channels to deliver the music "experience" to them in their own unique way; at a time of their choosing and with a vast array of options and bundling .

The bottom line? Even those of us over 50 know there has been a fundamental shift in the music industry, from a focus on tangible physical assets to the more intangible and highly customized experience.

The same is true for all businesses today. Managers and leaders of the past generation were able to milk successful products and services and stretch their life cycle without having to make substantial changes to the basic product. Today, globalization, technology, competition and the consumer's expectations are eradicating everything from CD's to Legal Services.

Now is the time to shift your planning and thinking energy away from a focus on the strategy development process. Redirect it instead to an all out effort to understand how your organization must evolve by looking at the broad evolution taking place in your industry or market.

Success will lie in the quality of your thinking and understanding, not in your planning and budgeting.

Testing the water

The opening section of Strategy Bites Back is appropriately entitled "SWOTed by strategy". The implication – we have been SWOTed to death.

One of the key mistakes many organizations make when developing a new strategy is not conducting a rigorous enough, broad enough or objective enough analysis of their environment (for further reading see our December 2004 Newsletter on "Confronting Reality").

The point is, if you're not sure where you are or where you want to go, test your product or service in a number of unique markets to find out which is, in fact, the best. Remember, you are trying to sell what people want, not what you want them to buy.

In Our Opinion
The Beacon Group's Keys to Getting Back to Strategy Basics

Know your intent – Strategy gurus Gary Hamel and C.K. Pralahad wrote a great article for the Harvard Business Review entitled "Strategic Intent". In their words, an organization's strategic intent "captures employees' imaginations and clarifies the criteria for success". In other words, it is the "what are we trying to accomplish" piece of the strategy.

Know your philosophy - Are you playing hardball? Are you leading a revolution? Or are you moving from good to great through evolution? Understanding your mental and tactical philosophy is crucial to determining the appropriate strategy for your organization.

Burn the map; embrace the compass - Remember - simple, smart and fast. Again, your plan is to serve as a compass to accomplish your strategic intent. Hire smart people, give them the rules they are to play by and then get out of the way, so they can execute.

Spread the gospel – The greater the percentage of your organization that knows your strategy intimately, the better. Your role as a leader is to ensure that the intent, the philosophy, and the plan are understood and valued by each and every member of your organization.

Our Monthly Rant
You don't have a strategy? Well, you're not alone!

If you ask them, most of the thinking people in your organization will tell you that, above everything else, they want you to end the confusion and uncertainty and just tell them where you are going.

It is not Vision they crave - it is Context.

Far too often, organizations plan, plan, plan. They have operating plans, production plans, and sales plans. However, they don't have a strategic plan, a point of view or a context. How can this possibly be? Imagine what the shareholders and stakeholders would say if they found out that nobody was actually driving the boat?

It also calls into question the reliability of the various 'plans' that are in place. Are they linked? Will they get the organization to where it needs to be? Oh wait … nobody really knows where they could be.

Are you lost?