Think strategically for greatness
everything with a strategic mindset. Present challenges can be absorbing and blinding.
THE obsession with the past can be limiting. True leverage is in the future. There is, therefore, no excuse to be without a strategy. Keep asking: What is next? Take bold strategic moves that propel you forward. When things are tough, that is when you must invest in planning for the future.
When things are going well, that is when you must strategically reflect. Mark your pathway to great destinations and stop talking doom, and dreaming gloom. Whatever challenges you face, do not give up on the future. Frame your context with strategic eyes, and be hyperaware of change signals.
Embrace a bold and exciting vision of the future. Acting with purposeless brute force and fury, but without strategy, will result in wasted energy. Once you have found a strategic path, follow it with focus. Move forward with planned action so that you do not revise an unimplemented strategy.
Power words
Do not let big high-sounding words trap you. In the strategy journey, you meet fashionable models, fancy words and many concepts. See through it all and ask basic strategy questions. Keep the objective clear. In strategy, you want to know where you are, where you are going and how you will be there.
Peter Drucker, the father of modern management, had five fundamental questions that he would use in his consulting practice. The questions were:
1. What is your mission?
2. Who is your customer?
3. What does your customer value?
4. What results do you seek?
5. What is your plan?
At its core strategy is creating a clear game plan. It is a way to play to win. It is clarifying priorities and focus. It is a guide to taking directed action in order to get where you should go.
Strategy helps you to play to win, not just to play. Strategy is game playbook. Define your goals and the means you will use to get there. Face boldly and creatively the obstacles that stand in your way. Strategy should never be a box-kicking ritual. It is a way to dance with purpose.
Ponderables
A strategy meeting is not a gripe purposeless session. It is important to structure your strategy conversations around key “ponderables”. These are the important issues that require focused thinking and dialogue.
Pictures
Pictures fuel faith and action. If your vision statement does not fire up pictures in your mind, change it. Start by developing a picture of what greatness means to you. This picture should rise above your excuses and the current limitations and handcuffs.
PowerPoint beauty parades
There are many things that could be looked at in a strategy conversation session. The worst sessions that I have seen are “PowerPoint” beauty parades that focus on how attractive the slides are, without a clear focus on the real heartfelt issues and discussions of substance. A strategy session is not an opportunity to hide behind presentations.
Good strategy conversations face brutal realities, without losing hope. Put the elephants in the room at the centre of your conversation.
These are big issues that everyone knows about, but that are uncomfortable to raise or discuss. Unless elephants in the room are faced, strategy conversations become sterile. Elephants in the room cannot be tackled in private by a single person.
They need a shared understanding of what they really are. Elephants that are not addressed do not disappear. They just grow in size.
Each person normally looks at the elephant in the room with a bias. The elephants in the room take different forms depending on the observer. When looked at by different eyes in the team, the elephant tends to mutate. It is only when these views are shared and discussed openly that it becomes easier to tame the elephants.
Strategy conversations should not be shouting matches. They are listening opportunities to hear and validate the differing views and co-create solutions.
Progress
Having a desire and a passion, and articulating a big goal is not enough. It is important to examine your growth brakes. These are issues that are holding you back and stopping you from progressing. Growth brakes usually come in two forms — concrete and personal. Concrete brakes are structural. This includes structures, processes, systems, models and policies.
Personal brakes relate to mindsets, fears, safety and other personal issues that hold people back. By looking closely at the brakes, you can evolve the steps you need to take to progress.
The journey of a thousand miles always starts with the first few determined steps.
The first step may be finding the small keys to unlock the brakes. At times, it may be finding the person with the key. Whatever holds you back will not be there forever.
Strategy conversations help you to see clearly the forces that are at play inside and outside your organisation or situation.
They help you not to fear chaos but to thrive on it.
The frame you use to look at chaos determines what you do. In 1988, Tom Peters wrote a book titled “Thriving on Chaos: Handbook for a Management Revolution” in which he puts forward five categories of strategic actions: customer responsiveness, fast-pace innovations, empowering people, leadership and systems.
You can adopt these as they play a vital role in your strategy setting.
Times of change are not times to stand still in the rain. Strategic conversations give the lens to see your preferred future and turning chaos into opportunity. Turn challenges into change and turbulence into unlimited possibilities.
Committed to your greatness.
◆ Milton Kamwendo is a leading international transformational and motivational speaker, author and accomplished workshop facilitator. He is a cutting-edge strategy, team-building and organisation development facilitator and consultant. His life purpose is to inspire and promote greatness. He can be reached at: mkamwendo@gmail.com