Strategy: It’s About Preparation

When helping organizations formulate their strategy, I spend considerable time interviewing both senior and front line leadership (often to my clients surprise). Why? Setting a new strategy requires consideration of three attributes:

1. Where have we been? What were our previous strategies, what worked well, what didn’t work well? Understanding history provides a glimpse into what’s possible for the future.

2. Where are we today? What are the challenges and opportunities? How are we doing in managing the day to day, and more importantly what have the outcomes been from our previous strategy? Are we where we expected to be?

3. What lies on the horizon? What are the obstacles and changes that lie on the horizon? What might their impact be on where we would like to go? How might we exploit what lies on the horizon?

Interviews provide significant insight into each of the three areas above, without which it is pretty difficult to set an effective strategy. So how much time are you spending on preparing for your strategy?

© Shawn Casemore 2013. All rights reserved.