Make Your Strategy Work!

Strategy is like a pregnancy: It is relatively easy to conceive, with the right midwife (facilitator) but difficult to deliver (execute). Most progressive organisations take time at least once per year to review their strategies and develop annual strategies or work-plans. Some set up longer term strategies for three to five years.

It’s not so much the periodicity of the strategy but whether the strategy is working and effective. Your strategy should be tested often for relevance, effectiveness and performance. Strategies should also be reviewed often in order to ensure that they maintain their motivational power and flame.

You cannot navigate new territory using an outdated map. Change is happening fast and strategies must factor in the changes almost dynamically in order to maintain the edge. An organisation that loses its strategic edge is a mere accident waiting to happen.

What the competitive neighbours are doing is well and great. It should never be ignored. The challenge is whether your strategy is well suited for your organisation. Yes, you must factor global and local realities in planning. You then need to confront the brutal facts of your business and ask if the path you are moving in has goodness of fit. Organisations must learn to swim or run in their chosen lanes.

How effective is your strategy? How up to date is it? Is it worth being called a strategy at all? What if your fiercest competitor saw your strategy - would they laugh or panic?