How to Establish Your Business Strategy in Crazy Times
Creating a successful Business Strategy relies on being sure about your direction
Business Strategy. For some, those two words spark excitement for exploring the possibilities of the future. Dreaming big. Being creative. Doing all the things that as a leader, you want to do. The best parts of the job.
For others, the words will be met with rolling eyes. Time out of your busy day. Not paying attention to your job, and indulging in superfluous, luxury tasks. You don't want to do it, your team doesn't want to be there. It's just a paper exercise, a tick in the box.
Having a coherent business strategy is crucial to ensure that all the hard work you do - every action, every risk, every challenge overcome, every sleepless night, every weekend working - works towards the future and world you want you and your business to live in. It allows you to find your direction, plan your route, overcome adversity and all the while achieve the vision you set out for yourself.
Without a business strategy, all your efforts are just random and sometimes competing actions that will fail to combine into the outcomes you want.
“Tactics without strategy is the noise before defeat”
The difference between a business strategy that genuinely motivates you to achieve your vision, and one that gathers dust on the shelf is all down to how you approach this exercise. It can be so much more than a ‘tick in the box’ - it can enable you to dream, think about where you want to go, and actually break you out of a rut you find yourself in and give you a plan to get to the future you want. By investing yourself in the process, and building it around a vision that motivates you, you’re already ensuring that you’re genuinely creating a plan for change and not just a pretty document that will sit around.
I have put together some of the lessons I’ve learned over the years for making sure that you create (and actually implement) something is aligned truly with where you want to go, and that will inspire others to buy into the journey.
1. Act now to create your Business Strategy
So you're firefighting. Hanging on, muddling through, getting by. Just doing what you need to do, day after day, to get to the end of the pandemic. How can you even think about 1,2 or (gasp) 5 years into the future, when you don't even know what the world is going to look like next week? What's the point of planning now, when things are changing so fast, and everything is so uncertain? Why not wait for it to calm down?
NEWSFLASH: Things aren’t calming down any time soon. We are living in an unprecedented era of change, and simply trying to ‘wait it out’ is going to leave you adrift for a long, long time. Besides, even in ‘normal’ times, things aren’t standing still. Good strategy isn’t just based on what is happening today. It builds your resilience to deal with the ‘unknown unknowns’ that are guaranteed to be in our future.
Don't wait for tomorrow, get a head start, and begin today.
2. Put enough (quality) time aside (make it your priority!)
It happens to the best of us. We put a day in the diary to deal with 'this strategy thing'. Then a meeting comes up in the morning, a key member of the team can't make it later, some people are late..
Before you know it, a full day has been shrunk to 2 hours.
And you make a start - a good start - but get nowhere near where you need to be.
It's okay, we'll schedule in a follow up.
But you never do.
It's easy to view the exercise as a single, one-shot, strategy session, that is 'done' once you leave the room, whether you actually 'finished' or not. But it isn't the case. The most effective approach is to consider you may need multiple sessions - some shorter, some longer. And the time you set aside needs to be ring-fenced.
I'd strongly recommend setting out a plan for your business strategy sessions. A 'plan for a plan' if you will, with multiple sessions as needed, and regular catch-ups once you have defined your strategy, to review progress and sense-check whether the strategy is still the right one.
3. Prepare your environment
It's tough to think big when you're surrounded by the same four walls where you run your business day-to-day. Whether that is in the office, or at home, you need to break out to somewhere that you can inspire you to dream bigger. The additional benefit of leaving your every-day workspace, and going somewhere inspiring is that you can eliminate distractions and interruptions that will keep dragging you back into the day-to-day.
Another consideration is the location of your team. Are you all physically located together, or are some/all of you working remotely?
In some cases, it's absolutely not possible to get everyone together in one place, but organising an in-person event for the group is one of the single best ways to get everyone bought in, inspired, collaborating and producing what you want.
4. Prepare your mind
Some of us are better at context-switching than others, but ultimately we all struggle to move from the high-paced, decision-making mode of the brain, to one that is creative and finds inspiration. Activities like walking are very effective at first of all get us out of ‘decision making’ mode and enhancing ‘divergent thought’ which allows us to create innovative solutions.
In reality, it's hard to avoid the back-to-back meetings, and in addition, if this is the first time you've had your whole team together for a while, you can guarantee that there will be a lot of topics that people have been dying to get off their chests, that they want to discuss with the group.
Instead of fighting this, go with it - use the first part of the meeting to 'clear the cache' - let people bring up the things that are on their minds (and similarly bring up things on your mind), and deal with them. Keep control - don't labour on a topic too long, but either make the desicion (where you can), or park an issue in the car park to pick up later. You will all benefit for getting these things off your mind, and creating some space, while also gaining some points with your team.
5. Forgive yourself
Or rather, set expectations, so you don't beat yourself up when things don’t go according to plan.
By creating a business strategy in uncertain times, you also need to accept that the plan WILL change. It's all too easy to lose interest and become disillusioned when external factors stop us from getting where we want to go.
Instead, expect change, build it in, plan some scenarios. But even then, accept that there are some 'unknown unknowns' out there, that will change everything.
Focus not on 'what' you can do to mitigate the unknowns, rather on 'how' you and your business can react to them.
6. Focus on your vision before considering where you are today
When starting to consider the first two pillars of your business strategy - your future goals and the current situation - a common mistake I see people make is to focus on the current situation first, and build their strategy based on that. The danger here is that you create your goals as a reaction to your current business model and the current environment, baking in all the limitations, conditions and beliefs that are present today. Your goals become defined by your obstacles, rather than an aspirational vision of the future.
Instead, I would strongly recommend considering your vision and goals first. Let go of the issues, what your business looks like today, and your limiting beliefs.
Once you have your vision and goals defined, THEN explore the reality - the assets you have for getting to where you want to go, the things that you need to overcome, the things you need to change. I appreciate that sometimes you might find something in the reality that may force you to rethink your goals, but that is why you also need to...
7. Keep circling back
This isn't a linear process. Sometimes you may set yourself a vision and goals, and then you find an opportunity in the your current operating environment that changes everything. Or (and this happens surprisingly often) you've agreed a vision and goals, but you're still not 100% convinced. As you go into the detail of your plan for the next year, you get excited about some ideas that just don't fit in with your vision. This is your warning sign that something is out of alignment. Don't ignore it - it could be that you need to go back and rethink what your vision really is.
Similarly, don't let a feeling of uncertainty hold you up - often clarity will come later in the process, just make sure you're ready to circle back and redefine if needed.
8. Build in accountability
How effective is your business strategy when it is sat, gathering dust on the shelf? Off the back of your strategy comes all the hard work - the actions, goals and, yes, sometimes projects, that will get you to where you want to be.
Smart businesses will create actions, set deadlines and assign owners to them.
The best leaders also add in an extra layer of accountability. Consider pairing up team members on actions - one who is responsible for delivering the action, and another who holds them to account - an Accountability Buddy. An effective accountability buddy is one of the most useful assets you can have to actually see things through and achieve your goals.
And don't forget to assign someone to hold YOU to account. This could be one of your peers, a mentor, a coach. If you are the CEO or owner, I'd strongly recommend reaching out to find someone who can offer this externally.
9. Understand your first step
One of the most overwhelmingly common reasons that people fail to get started is that they haven't thought about what the very first step is towards reaching their goal. Our minds will convince us to avoid tasks that are too ill-defined, too big, too confusing and too overwhelming.
We don't ALWAYS need a clear and detailed plan to get started. Sometimes you just need to think of the very first step you need to make to start working on your goal. It could be loading the software on your PC to create an outline plan.
It could be finding a meeting slot that everyone can attend.
It could be putting on your running shoes (or it could be just finding your running shoes)
Don't worry about unblocking the whole action. Just unblock the first step.
