better business blog

Tips and stories to add value to you and your organisation

What’s Your Strategy?

1 February 2021

Hello! Welcome to 2021 and what happened to January? One minute it was there and the next it was gone …like the snow we had the other weekend. That’s my favorite kind of snow; the sort that falls, makes the world look pretty for a day and then departs in haste.

Business is not like snow, well not like English snow anyway. It’s more like Canadian snow …the kind that hangs around and makes you take it seriously.

One month gone already and the year is already jogging along, despite the uncertainty and discomfort of lockdown.

This thought spurred me on to write a new business strategy for a project that needed a boost.

It’s too easy to have either no clear strategy for success, or to have one locked in a drawer that nobody reads.

A good strategy gives us direction and sets out our mission. The trick though is to make it responsive to new information.

My project needed a reset, because despite progress, we had lost sight of our overall strategy. We were having too much fun creating new possibilities and had become a bit bogged down with the details.

So, I stepped back and did some thinking. It’s good to take a minimalist approach with strategic work, as too many people write 1,000s of words and forget what the essence of the work is all about.

I framed our revised strategy as answers to the following simple questions:

1. What is the essence of our mission?

2. What is the minimum we need to do now to make progress?

3. What is a simple pathway to future success?

4. How do we keep ourselves engaged with the project?

It’s good to keep things to a realistic minimum and to account for the people too. If you’re not enjoying it, then maybe it’s time to rethink it and do things differently.

As a result of my simple and focussed approach I was able to carve out simple tactical actions during the next project meeting.

And it felt so good! Good to have direction and achievable goals. My project already feels 100% more successful than it did two weeks ago. I’m excited …I can’t wait to see how much fun we have with it over the next 11 months.

So, this week take time away from the daily detail to consider your 2021 strategy.

Think about my questions above. What will you be doing for the rest of the year?

Keep well.