Strategic agility

There are a lot more people who can take a hill than there are people who can accurately predict which hill it would be best to take. There are more people good at producing results in the short-term than there are visionary strategists. Both have value, but we don’t have enough strategists. It is more likely that your organisation will be outmanoeuvred strategically than it will be out produced tactically. Many organisations do pretty well what they do today. It’s what they need to be doing tomorrow that’s the missing skill. Part of every manager’s job is to be strategic. The higher you go, the more critical the requirement.

Here are ten actions to help you improve your strategic agility:

1. Speak strategically. Strategy is an emerging and ever-changing field. At any time there are gurus in vogue, who create numerous new words or concepts (values disciplines, strategic intent, core capabilities, value migration) to describe strategic thinking. And yes, most of the words are bigger words for things we used to call something else before with smaller words. Nevertheless, if you want to be seen as more strategic, you have to talk more strategically. Every discipline has a lexicon. In other words, to be a member, you have to speak the code.

2. Don’t reject strategy. There are people who reject strategic formulation as so much folly. They have never seen a five-year strategic plan actually happen as projected. They think the time they use to create and present strategic plans is wasted. While it is true that most strategic plans never work out as planned, that doesn’t mean that it was wasted effort. Strategic plans lead to choices about resources and deployment. They lead to different staffing actions and different financial plans. Without some strategic plans, it would be a total shot in the dark. Most failed companies get buried strategically, not tactically.

3. Be curious. Many managers are so wrapped up in today’s problems that they aren’t curious about tomorrow. Being a visionary and good strategist requires curiosity and imagination. It requires asking ‘what if.’ Work at developing broader interests outside your business. Subscribe to different magazines. Pick new business shows to watch. Network with different people. Look under some rocks. Thing about tomorrow. Talk to others about what they think the future will bring.

4. Widen your perspective. Some are sharply focused on what they do and do it very well. They have prepared themselves for a narrow but satisfying career. Then someone tells them their job has changed, and they now have to be strategic. Being strategic requires a broad perspective. In addition to knowing on thing well, it requires that you know about a lot of things somewhat.

5. Don’t be too busy. Strategy is always last on the list. Solving today’s problems, of which there are many, is job one. You have to make time for strategy. A good strategy releases future time because it makes choices clear and leads to less wasted effort, but it takes time to do. Delegation is usually the main key. Give away as much tactical day-to-day stuff as you can. Ask people what they think they could do to give you more time for strategic reflection. Another key is better time management. TEN offers a first class workshop on this subject.

6. Don’t speculate. Strategic planning is the most uncertain thing managers do next to managing people. It’s speculating on the near unknown. It requires projections into foggy landscapes. It requires assumptions about the unknown. Many conflict avoiders and perfectionists don’t like to make statements in public they cannot back up with facts. Most strategies can be challenged and questioned. There are no clean ways to win a debate over strategy. It really comes down to one subjective estimate versus another. Sometimes it is the person who can talk the longest and loudest who wins.

7. Keep it simple. Strategy ends up sounding simple. Ten clear statements about where you want to go with a few tactics and decisions attached to each. Getting there is not simple. Good strategists extend everything to its extreme before they get down to the essence. Others close too early. They are impatient to get it done faster. They are very results orientated and want to get there to the ten simple statements before strategic due process has been followed. Be more tolerant of unlimited exploration and debate before you move to close.

8. Learn to be strategic. Scan the Harvard Business Review. Attend our master class on strategic thinking or invite us to tutor you in strategy. Watch CEOs talk about their businesses on Bloomberg. Volunteer to serve on a task force on a strategic issue. Join the Strategic Leadership Forum organised by TEN. Read 10 annual reports a year outside your industry and study their strategies.

9. Get a competitive advantage. Many experts say that a competitive advantage of a couple of months is the best you can hope for. The only solution is to constantly create opportunities from lots of ‘what-if’ scenarios, and try many experiments. When something works, you’ll know why. Then you can vary it to see how to make it better. Varying it depends on having trained staff ready to move into this area immediately to exploit an advantage.

10. Follow tried and tested logic. If you can’t demonstrate how a job aligns with the strategy, why do you have it? All teams should be able to explain what they are for, not just what they do. As Hamel and Prahalad have argued in their strategy work, most of what spells success needs to be found outside the organisation on is in, and it must be hunted and used by as many people as possible. What they call the democratisation of strategy is necessary in all jobs: look outside the box, don’t try and fit all knowledge into neat categories, and spend the time necessary to come up with plans and visions to implement something new or different.

William Montgomery
CEO of TEN

Through his workshops, William Montgomery has helped hundreds of organisations and schools plus thousands of people to achieve their potential. To discuss your continuous improvement requirements, please call 0117 325 2010 or send a message to mail@askten.co.uk.