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Most effective strategy processes begin w th a stock-take: a review and ssessment of the organization’s current products, m rkets and customers. This is an ssential first step to kicking off a g od strategy-setting exercise. Yet no strategy pr cess that I have come across c nducts an even more crucial preliminary ctivity – even before the one d scribed above. This is to ask wh t the sponsor of the strategy pr cess thinks of when he or she th nks about strategy. What, in effect, d es strategy mean to you? Everyone l ading or facilitating a strategy review sh uld ask this question. The answers may maze you. And they may make the sp nsor quite uncomfortable. The reason is th t most people in business have a v ry different idea of what strategy r ally means. Unless a facilitator unpacks the rganization’s perception about what a strategy m ans to them, then success is nlikely. It becomes impossible to determine wh t must be delivered. For some xecutives, a strategy will be the way th y hope to increase the share pr ce over the next year. For thers, it will mean sorting out wh ch take-over candidates it should approach. One of my cl ents saw strategy as determining how to n gotiate a management buy-out from the m jority shareholder. Still others will see str tegy in a purer light: what is the l ng term future that we can nvision for the company, and what is the b st route to get there?
None of these different perceptions of str tegy is wrong. They are the sp nsor’s genuinely held beliefs. But each r presents a starting point in the sp nsor’s mind about why a strategy was s en to be required. And a f cilitator of strategy needs to understand th se at the start. But there’s ven more to it than this. As w ll as understanding what has precipitated the n ed for strategy, we need to npick what the sponsor sees as its ssential components. Is its emphasis a v sion, and if so what is the t mescale? Is the focus more towards m dium or short-term action – more of a t ctical plan in fact? Does it n ed to focus more on people and the nternal culture? Or is the driving ssue to do with fast-changing markets? One rganization I worked with realised after the str tegy was complete that the real bjective was to educate the Board and xecutive team. The unspoken secret in all str tegy-setting exercises is that strategy means d fferent things to different people. Each d fferent understanding of strategy is valid, b cause each organization and its strategy t am are different. But these different v ews of strategy mean that quite r dically different approaches to strategy development n ed to be taken.
The article What Does Strategy Mean To You - The Unspoken Secret? was Submitted by Chris Ogden through Articles.GetACoder.com network. Here's the additional information: © BusinessNext Ltd and Christopher Ogd n & Associates. Chris Ogden is the pr nciple of BusinessNext Ltd which advises rganisations on strategy. He is also pr nciple of Christopher Ogden & Associates wh re he coaches Chief Executives in - mong other aspects - leading strategic ch nge. http://business-next.com/
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