Time to check in: How’s your strategy?
8/13/12 / Karla Raines
Every strategy is based upon a set of assumptions, some of which prove to be true and others false. Those assumptions play out real time, each and every day. Now that you are half-way through the calendar year, you may find the need to reality check your current strategy. At Corona, we define strategy as a coordinated series of actions. The operative words are coordinated and series. Are you engaging with your strategy in real time?
- Which of the assumptions underpinning your current strategy are no longer valid? Which assumptions are foundational?
- How are comparators and competitors responding to opportunities? To threats?
- Have conditions changed significantly enough to warrant a new strategy or will a tune-up suffice?
- If you changed your perspective on the situation – reframed your thinking so to speak – might a new approach reveal itself?
- What options are available to you? What will you recommend?
- How will you engage your staff and board leadership in making the necessary adjustment?
Strategy is a team sport. So gather your strategic thinking colleagues around you and wrestle with some big questions. Then act. Reference: “Stress-Test Your Strategy: The 7 Questions to Ask,” by Robert Simons. Harvard Business Review, November 2010.