Last month I wrote about Attitude to business, life and success.
I want to build on that theme over the next few months.
So I’ve invented a word to describe my thoughts on The attitude of Strategy - Strattitude.
Where we have to start, is by asking three strategic questions:
- What do I want to achieve over the next year? Be specific and detailed in answering that.
- What actions will I have to take in order to achieve these results? Timeframe them all.
- Is it feasible to do what I want to do with the resources I currently have in place? If not what resources do I need to put in place?
Question one is all about the business owner, the mindset, ATTITUDE, and making a pretty ruthless assessment of all the things we currently do.
What is working to achieve our result?
The sub question for this is WHY is it working and what could I do to in case volume and therefore profitability.
And what isn’t?
The sub question for this is WHY isn’t it working and what could I do to fix it?
We have to measure this success against some kind of scale. When we measure that, the result has to be clear. Yes it works towards our outcome within the time frame in line with our business plan (we have a plan don’t we?). Or, no it doesn’t.
Once that assessment is done, stop doing things that are not working and free up time, resources and money to work on the new ideas, developments, new markets that you identified as opportunities in your plan
This is strategic decision making. Yes, it is scary, but if we have the resources in place we will work smarter not harder and achieve better results more quickly.
Question 2 is actually phrased in a single word. HOW?
Planning/evaluating the how, the structure, the methodology the resource, needed to do everything we do. Leave nothing out!
Why do we do what we do the way we do it? If the answer is because that’s the way we always did it then it deserves a good critical look. Is there a leaner, better, faster, cheaper less labour intensive way to do it? Is there software or mechanisation I could use that would give me a better return on time or money invested.
What will it cost to make the changes? Money, time, lost productivity in the short term, for improvements in the long term.
As you work out what needs to be done the required resources, time money, physical space, equipment and so on come into focus. Again you need to plan HOW all these thing are achieved with Milestones of achievement along the way to measure progress towards the goal and that addresses question 3.
We haven’t even discussed the obstacles that you will encounter along the way but applying strategic questions to each one will clear your thinking and build you an action plan.
So now you have an attitude, a newest of habits and a strategic action plan.
That is your Strattitude.