Category: Strategic Thinking

The seventh strategic thinking skill may not seem like a skill at all.

Taking time to recharge yourself, however, is an absolutely crucial strategic thinking skill.  This key item both improves productivity and allows for separate, rich strategic thinking.

Taking time out isn’t just about self-care and recharging, although those are important benefits. Taking time away from the routine of urgent issues and operational thinking is necessary to “reset” the brain to the different approaches of strategic thinking.

There are five key strategic thinking skill benefits from this intentional “recharge yourself” approach.

1. The brain is allowed to shift from reaction to contemplation.

These are two very different types of thinking, and reaction thinking is usually the worst kind of approach to strategic thinking.  This is partly because reaction thinking is very predictable.  That is, your competitors are likely to anticipate your responses if you are simply reacting to their moves.  Great chess players will tell you that this is always a losing strategy.  Winning calls for you to make your competitors react to you.

2. Taking a break to recharge yourself signals to your mind that a different kind of thinking is called for.

The human brain habitually looks for threats and things to fix.  One brain researcher I know says this is a natural result of our history. Early man, living on the African Savannah, could not survive without constantly scanning the horizon for lions creeping up.  When we back away from this “unsafe” environment, we gain the ability to think differently.  Naturally, most of us don’t face lions in our work.  However, we do face stressful and threatening problems, and they trigger the same responses in our brains.  Signaling to your brain that you are “safe” to relax and think differently is a very important part of good strategic thinking.

3. Backing away from daily concerns opens space for bigger-picture thinking.

It’s not just “safety” we need to do good strategic thinking.  We also need to stop focusing in on the details of tactical reality.  While every business must handle tactics well, it is easy to fail to see the forest because we are focused on the trees.  Strategic thinking requires consideration of the bigger picture, and you can’t do that well while focused on daily activities.

4. Shifting activity improves creativity by stimulating different sets of neurons in your brain

Brilliant psychologist Donald MacKinnon described creativity as hinging upon an “ability to play”.  Play is inherently seen as a separate activity from work.  Part of its effectiveness lies in the mental shift that comes from that separation.  When we shift our thinking this way, we essentially process our world using different parts of the brain.  The creativity this encourages is a vital part of good strategic thinking.

5. Your mental focus can shift from “drain the swamp because we are up to our rears in alligators” to “where are all these alligators coming from anyway, and can we harness them?”.

We all know the old saw about “draining the swamp” when surrounded by alligators.  Strategic thinking often calls for us to look far beyond just draining the swamp.  How can we actually change or harness the forces that buffet our organizations on a daily basis?  Taking time away from routine work allows you to stop thinking about the alligators for a bit.  Refocus on the swamp, the sources of alligators, and why we want to drain the swamp, anyway.

The way you recharge yourself doesn’t have to be a nap or recreation.

It can be anything that separates you from more routine thinking. Taking a walk in a special environment, doodling on a blank pad, or relaxing someplace quiet with a cup of tea can all serve this purpose.  Some people who specialize in brain performance suggest having a ritual of separation from the daily grind.  This ritual – drinking a cup of tea is a good example – can be simple, but it also signals your brain to “shift gears” to strategic thinking.

Here are a few strategic skill ideas about how you can step away from the tactical to think better about the strategic.

1. Get away, physically.

Granted, this may not always be possible, but physical separation clearly signals the change in thinking that is called for.  If you can’t physically get away, do what you can to minimize the routine stimuli of your work day.  Especially minimize noises, interruptions, phone calls and email.

2. Start with a ritual.

Do something concrete to signal to your brain that you are shifting gears.  This may mean putting on soothing music, having a cup of tea, or settling into a comfortable chair.  While some people have elaborate rituals to do this, you only need one that sends a clear signal to your brain.  The signal should say “I am going to think differently for a while”.

3. Shield yourself from stressors.

This is not just about the physical stressors mentioned earlier, like noise and interruptions.  You also want to do anything you can to stay away from topics which lead to rumination about tactical issues.  This is why it’s crucial to mentally set some topics on the shelf when you are taking time away from work.  If nothing else, simply tell yourself you are putting a pin in those topics and will certainly return to them later.

4. Intentionally re-frame your thinking.

This may be one of the hardest strategic thinking skills to acquire, but there are some simple tools you can use.  My favorites are turning things upside-down and systematizing. Ask questions like “How could I make sure we lose customers as quickly as possible?”.  Another question might be “How can we profit from the things that most annoy us?”  For the purpose of taking time out, you may want to think about your business in a more playful way.  For example, “If our industry were a game, what would the board look like?”  Another playful question might be “How would Leonardo daVinci manage my business?”

5. Write down your ideas.

At the end, if you don’t capture your thinking, all the great strategic thinking in the world won’t do you any good.  So, write something down.  It doesn’t have to be amazing.  Just make sure you can pick up the thread again later.

I’d love to hear any stories of things that have led to great successes for you.  And – of course – if you’d like assistance developing these skills, please reach out to me for workshops, coaching and consulting assistance.  If you’d like to learn more about taking time to recharge yourself and more specifically how to develop strategic awareness, Simplified Strategic Planning is a great place to start.  For great ideas on how to improve the quality of your planning, contact me at rbradford@cssp.com.  Consider holding a one-day workshop on Simplified Strategic Planning.

Robert Bradford is President & CEO of the Center for Simplified Strategic Planning, Inc.  He can be reached at rbradford@cssp.com.

Dana Baldwin is Senior Strategist with the Center for Simplified Strategic Planning, Inc.  He can be reached by email at baldwin@cssp.com.

Lifelong learning, the sixth key ability that is crucial to great strategic thinking, is constant.

The learning we are talking about here is not limited to your area of expertise or your line of business.  Conversely, it extends to learning about anything that may enhance your understanding of  the world and how it works.

First, lifelong learning is pretty closely tied to strategic awareness.

One of the key attributes we mentioned in people with good strategic awareness is consuming lots of information.  Learning is more than just consuming information, though.  Good learning involves taking the time to connect what you learn to what you already know and applying it.

Second, there are types of learning that are more likely to contribute to good strategic thinking.

Forget about rote memorization and figures.  You need to learn about how things work and how they connect to each other.  For example, if you know average prices for corn and wheat, that’s interesting if you’re in agriculture.  However, understanding the connection between weather patterns, grain prices and economic change can lead you to powerful strategic thinking.  In the first example, corn prices are a fact.  In the second example, you completely understand the systemic connections in the real world and their implications.

Third, to foster good strategic thinking, consider learning anything that might illuminate your understanding of the world around you.

Sometimes, you can extend simple historical facts into strategic hypotheses.  As a simple example, Levi Strauss built a clothing empire beginning with one simple factor.  That factor was people rushing to look for gold in California in 1849.  Those people brought many things with them, but they wore through normal clothing quickly.  The underlying idea was that the gold rush made Levi Strauss successful because he provided a tool for the hopeful.   You can break that idea down into several interesting ideas.  For example, most people going to California expected to get rich by finding gold.  Strauss succeeded by providing a tool that people needed.  You might argue that people selling picks and shovels should have been similarly successful. Strauss, however, provided a tool that few anticipated needing.  Furthermore, this tool wore out with use (even if Levis were more durable than normal clothing).

If you’d like to learn more about that particular success story, you probably are a strategic lifelong learner.

Strategic thinkers like to know what happened – but they are more interested in understanding why things happened the way they did.

Here are a few tips to extend your strategic thinking through lifelong learning.

1. Read non-fiction.

This is irreplaceable.  I particularly recommend history, military history, alternative history, historical novels, current events, and politics.  Think about how things  could have been different and whether the ways they could or could have been different are strategic changes or tactical changes.  Clearly, great thinking comes from learning why the world is as it is and how it might have been different.  For example, how could the confederates have won at Gettysburg, was it strategic or tactical, and what difference would it have made?

2. Go deep in some areas that are far outside your daily work and responsibilities.

If you want to expand your strategic thinking, you might study how invasive plant species spread, learn how to do stand-up comedy, or read about how the Spaniards managed to quickly conquer South America.  None of these things is likely to lead directly to strategic insights, but I have seen all three lead to insights indirectly.

3. Spend time around people who enjoy discussing these things.

When we learn, we can form flimsy theories about what we have learned unless we test our ideas.  Discussing what you are learning can help test your new understanding and explore the possibilities of the new information you have at your disposal.

Finally, broad learning exposes you to different ways to think about things.

Since strategic thinking is different than the thinking you use in your daily work, it pays to develop it.

Has your learning helped your strategic thinking in your business?

I’d love to hear any stories of things that have led to great successes for you.  And – of course – if you’d like assistance developing these skills, please reach out to me for workshops, coaching and consulting assistance.  If you’d like to learn more about lifelong learning and more specifically how to develop strategic awareness, Simplified Strategic Planning is a great place to start.  For great ideas on how to improve the quality of your planning, contact me at rbradford@cssp.com.  Consider holding a one-day workshop on Simplified Strategic Planning.

Robert Bradford is President & CEO of the Center for Simplified Strategic Planning, Inc.  He can be reached at rbradford@cssp.com.

Dana Baldwin is Senior Strategist with the Center for Simplified Strategic Planning, Inc.  He can be reached by email at baldwin@cssp.com.

Strategic awareness is critical to strategic thinking.  This includes not just awareness of the immediate situation, but awareness of a wide range of internal and external factors that you can use to guide the future direction of your organization.

Three key attributes in people that have strategic awareness.

First, they consume information prodigiously.

It’s not unusual at all to find great strategic thinkers have wide ranging knowledge.  Often, they will have a passing acquaintance with all kinds of subjects and deep, deep interest in several of those.  You’ll find such people are more likely to read a lot – and often, they consume information sources by listening and watching media as well.

Second, they listen to everything – even things they disagree with.

Ninety percent of good strategy is listening and ten percent is completely ignoring what people tell you.  The great thing, of course, is to choose which 90% to listen to.  Regardless, good strategic thinkers seldom assume they have all the information and listen actively to anyone they think will offer new insight into the organization, their competition, or their markets.

Third, they notice significant analogies between different situations.

Many great strategic insights begin like this: “Our business is just like a…”.  What it’s like will vary, but it can be a duck pond, an anthill, or a carnival ride.  Seeing how the business situation is like such different things shows a flexible and creative understanding of the business and the world in general.  The key to this skill is the ability to see connections and analogies in many different situations.

An important question some readers may ask is “How can I develop strategic awareness?”

Here are a few ideas that may help you develop strategic awareness.

First, read, especially outside of your field of expertise.

Read histories, books about science, or read to learn a new skill.  Hence, read anything that broadens your view may lead to better strategic awareness.

Second, learn to suspend judgment when hearing new information – and focus especially on listening to different viewpoints.

When people are telling you things, do your best to incorporate the information into your understanding of the world.  This is especially true in your business and is more important the higher you are in an organization.

Third, spend time paying attention to things outside of your business.

Play chess, observe other industries – anything that may give you insights into systems that work, or those that fail to work.

Finally, it must be said that an open mind makes strategic awareness easier.

If you are open to new insights and the simple practice of not doing anything but letting your mind wander over ideas and possibilities can inspire the most profound ideas.  This is why some time that is not scheduled for any other activities can be a great way to increase your creative productivity.

If you’d like to learn more about strategic thinking and more specifically how to develop strategic awareness, Simplified Strategic Planning is a great place to start.  For great ideas on how to improve the quality of your planning, contact me at rbradford@cssp.com.  Consider holding a one-day workshop on Simplified Strategic Planning.

Robert Bradford is President & CEO of the Center for Simplified Strategic Planning, Inc.  He can be reached at rbradford@cssp.com.

Dana Baldwin is Senior Strategist with the Center for Simplified Strategic Planning, Inc.  He can be reached by email at baldwin@cssp.com.

The fourth critical skill for strategic thinking is the ability to create adaptive strategies.  This includes the ability to design flexibility into your plans by creating an ability to review and adjust your progress on your strategies.

Adaptive strategies are valuable in both strategy formulation and execution.

In strategy, it helps you avoid setting a direction for your company that leads to an unsustainable future.  Examples of this are common in any industry related to technology.  As just one example, many devices like the GPS and digital camera became less universally needed when the devices were largely replaced by the mobile smartphone. The smartphone combined the functionality of those devices into a single package.  Any strategy that took you down the path of manufacturing such devices inevitably led to a dead end.  In that dead end, your manufacturing capabilities, while expensive, became irrelevant to meeting the customer need.  On the other hand, if you focused on the creation of software and using data from GPS devices, you would not be in a dead end.  Those competencies are critical to success in many smartphone applications, as well.

Underlying this skill in strategy is the ability to extend current trends and changes into the future.

Sometimes this is difficult, as the results of current trends may not be immediately visible.  As an example, the invention of canned foods led to the invention of the elevator.  Not because the technologies connect at all, but because the food innovations allowed cities to become more dense.  This made real estate more valuable and taller buildings desirable.  Furthermore, in current technology, self-driving cars could make large parking lots less common. Clearly, the car no longer needs to stay near the passengers in order to be useful.  Understanding these changes requires an ability to strip away the external form of products and services in order to perceive the need.  Although it’s impossible to get this 100% right, successful companies  have greatly extended the viability of their operation.

In implementation, adaptive strategies enable you to find another way when you reach a dead end.

One of the most important elements of having this ability is having an objective that clearly states the result you are looking for, rather than an action.  With the ability to focus on the result, you gain flexibility.  When one approach to achieving the objective is blocked, it’s often possible to achieve the objective by following another path.  If you think of your strategic objectives as actions, a good result becomes far more difficult.  This is because completing the action IS the objective.  If the action doesn’t lead to the result you want, you will have to go back and restate the objective.

The benefits of adaptive strategies are the ability to see the path you are on, the place you want to reach, and notice the changing paths that are available to reach your desired destination.  Simplified Strategic Planning is a wonderful, robust tool for doing this in any organization.

Adaptive strategies give you the ability to design flexibility into your plans by creating some benchmarks.

You can then use those benchmarks as a guide and recognize the opportunity to revise your plans as needed. This gives you the ability to be proactive and anticipate change, rather than being reactive to changes after they occur.

If you’d like to learn more about strategic thinking and more specifically how to generate adaptive strategies, Simplified Strategic Planning is a great place to start.  For great ideas on how to improve the quality of your planning, contact me at rbradford@cssp.com.  Consider holding a one-day workshop on Simplified Strategic Planning.

Robert Bradford is President & CEO of the Center for Simplified Strategic Planning, Inc.  He can be reached at rbradford@cssp.com.

Dana Baldwin is Senior Strategist with the Center for Simplified Strategic Planning, Inc.  He can be reached by email at baldwin@cssp.com.

SMART objectives plus the ability to develop a strategic action plan is the third critical skill for strategic thinking.  Set SMART objectives and know how you will implement them.  Break down each objective into tasks and make a list of needed resources and a specific timeline for each task .

When we say “SMART objectives ”, we have something very specific in mind.

Those who’ve read our book or attended the seminar know that we support the “SMART objective”.  A SMART objective has five characteristics.

Specific – you know exactly what the author wants to happen.

Measurable – you can objectively measure or assess whether the team achieved the result.

Achievable – the objective is something you can actually get done (no “stretch objectives”).

Result – the objective is a result you desire and not an activity.

Time-bound – the team must complete the objective by a deadline, to create urgency and priority.

Consequently, if your team fails to make SMART objectives, you can fail before you even start your implementation.  Therefore, it pays to evaluate each objective using these criterion.

Consider this (poor) objective statement:

Make more money.

Sure, it’s kind of measurable, but it’s not specific or a result, and has no deadline.  Your chances of successfully creating a meaningful plan for implementing this objective are low, and your chances of implementing that action plan are also low.

Now, let’s look at a SMART objective example.

Sell $2 million of our new Alpha service in North America by January, 2020.

Certainly, if you do this, you’ll make more money (I hope).  But look at how much it helps you think about what to do in the coming months.  We aren’t just going to introduce the service, we have to sell $2 million worth of it.  And we specifically know where we intend to sell it, as well.  These constraints make it easier to write the action plan, because we know what the steps lead to.  We’ll also, naturally, be able to objectively state whether we achieved the objective or not on the deadline date.

Some people point out that we might be plenty happy if we sold $1.9 million by February.

Remember, though, even if you would be happy with less, the objective creates a clear target.  If you don’t have a clear target, or if your team can’t even agree on what the target is, you will have a much harder time implementing your intentions.

The second part of this skill – being able to break the SMART objectives down to the specific task level – is simply how implementation can be well-managed.

Many organizations end their strategic planning with a simple list of objectives.  Those organizations that go a step further, however, have the best results.  Specifically, they identify the steps needed to complete each objective, the resources required, and the dates when those steps will be completed.  While this implementation planning, is seldom super accurate after the fact, it does impose a kind of realism.  This way the team realizes what is going to get done and when it will get done.  It also gives you a much clearer picture of the time and money needed to achieve the objective.

Why is this a key part of strategic thinking?

Simply put, the forced realism in proper implementation planning makes the difference between a typical strategic plan and one that is well-implemented.  Historically, the average company achieves about 30% of the objectives that they set without this rigorous approach.  Companies using a more realistic approach with proper implementation review, however, will achieve an average of 80% of their objectives.

Do you feel you have the ability develop SMART objectives and implementation programs?

Congratulations!  You have another one of the 11 critical skills for strategic thinking.  Otherwise, if you’d like to learn more about strategic thinking and more specifically how to generate good objective statements and implementation programs, Simplified Strategic Planning is a great place to start.  For great ideas on how to improve the quality of your planning, contact me at rbradford@cssp.com.  Consider holding a one-day workshop on Simplified Strategic Planning.

Robert Bradford is President & CEO of the Center for Simplified Strategic Planning, Inc.  He can be reached at rbradford@cssp.com.

Dana Baldwin is Senior Strategist with the Center for Simplified Strategic Planning, Inc.  He can be reached by email at baldwin@cssp.com.

A clear, focused vision is a critical skill for strategic thinking.  There are three key benefits to having a clearly defined and focused vision.

1. A good vision will draw you forward, and define the larger undertaking that drives your activities.

Think about the difference between NASA in the 1960s, when they – and the nation – were energized by the audacious goal of reaching the moon in 10 years, and NASA in the 1970s, which had no giant-sized vision for their future.  When you are working on anything that supports a good vision, it carries the hope of the vision with it.  That means that NASA electricians, receptionists and janitors weren’t just doing mundane jobs – they were going to the moon.

2. A clearly defined vision tells us exactly what the vision is, of course.

More importantly, a clearly defined vision tells us what it is NOT.  Without clear definition, people may wiggle around within the conceivable interpretations of the vision.  In companies, this wiggling can lead to people working at cross purposes even though they are (in their minds) pursuing the same vision.

3. Finally, focus allows us to create greater leverage towards a vision with limited resources.

The more limited your resources, the more critical a focused vision will be to seeing success.  Imagine you have a very small business, maybe one with 10 employees.  Trying to be a player in a billion dollar industry may seem exciting, but success will be far more likely if your vision forces you to focus on a smaller chunk that matches your resources.  Low market share correlates strongly with low profitability, so your business with limited resources will have higher profitability going after a focused subset of the industry because your market share will be larger.

These three benefits point to three key actions to take if you want to have a great vision.

First, you must have a process that creates a vision for the future (and not just an extension of the current situation).

Real vision moves us forward and gives us direction.  Writing the vision down gives it teeth and reality.

Second, it’s worth spending time to assure that you state your vision clearly and unambiguously.

It’s one thing to say we will sell more, and it’s another thing to say we will sell five times as much in five years.  You also want to be sure that your stated vision matches the reality of your dreams.

Third, be crystal clear that you cannot do everything.

Furthermore, the more you clearly DO NOT include in your vision statement, the easier it will be to achieve forward motion with your vision. Bright, shiny objects can distract anyone, and focus is a key tool for avoiding that distraction.

Do you feel you have the ability to generate a clear, focused vision?  Congratulations!  You have another one of the 11 critical skills for strategic thinking.  Otherwise, if you’d like to learn more about strategic thinking and more specifically how to generate a clear, focused vision, Simplified Strategic Planning is a great place to start.  For great ideas on how to improve the quality of your planning, contact me at rbradford@cssp.com.  Consider holding a one-day workshop on Simplified Strategic Planning.

Robert Bradford is President & CEO of the Center for Simplified Strategic Planning, Inc.  He can be reached at rbradford@cssp.com.

Dana Baldwin is Senior Strategist with the Center for Simplified Strategic Planning, Inc.  He can be reached by email at baldwin@cssp.com.

The ability to analyze issues using both “left brained” and “right brained” thinking is critical to really great strategic thinking.

In business, many of us have a tendency to lean on one or the other type of thinking.  Truly strategic thinking, however, involves a more holistic understanding of situations.  This is at least partly because strategic situations are rarely pure “left brained” or “right brained” scenarios.  Hence, quantification and logic dictate the correct answer (left brained) or emotion and feeling determine the best answer (right brained).  This is sometimes thought of as seeing both the forest and the trees.

Many industries function around operational realities that are best approached with left brained thinking – finance, construction and manufacturing.  On the other hand, right brained thinking tends to give us better access to creative ideas and understanding customer behaviors.

First, in most business settings, this reality is often evident in the tendencies of people in different roles in the company.

People who prefer right-brained thinking often gravitate to positions in sales, marketing and design.  People who like left-brained thinking typically feel more at home as engineers, or in positions involving finance and measurement.

As with the tension triangle issue, where there is no one perspective that’s always correct, you want to assure you bring both types of thinking into your strategic thinking.  Many excellent companies show an understanding of this by including both types of thinking in the strategic planning team.  The best strategic thinkers have the ability to consider and use both types of thinking in their own heads.

If you’ve relied heavily on one type of thinking, however, the practice of using both can take some getting used to.

There is a specific part of the brain – the corpus callosum – that connects the two hemispheres. As a result, bilateral thinking tends to use it heavily.  Research suggests that there is a positive correlation between intelligence and the thickness of the corpus callosum. So, more intelligent managers should have a higher ability to engage in bicameral thinking.  People who are born without a corpus callosum, however, can learn to integrate left and right-brained processes. Furthermore, it’s also likely that we can improve our integrative thinking by “rewiring” our brains.  The ability of the brain to adapt in this way is called neuroplasticity, and it’s an exciting area of brain research.

Practically, you can bring both types of thinking together in three simple ways.

1. Assess strategic issues with someone whose thinking is the opposite of yours, hemispherically.
2. Consciously ask key questions while trying to hold both types of thinking in your mind.
3. Seek to develop your other hemisphere by engaging in play activities that require its use. For example, painting and music are activities for right-brained thinking.  Crossword puzzles and logic games are activities for left-brained thinking.

How do you assure good strategic thinking skills in your company?

If you’d like to learn more about strategic thinking and more specifically thinking bilaterally, Simplified Strategic Planning is a great place to start.  For great ideas on how to improve the quality of your planning, contact me at rbradford@cssp.com.  Consider holding a one-day workshop on Simplified Strategic Planning.

Robert Bradford is President & CEO of the Center for Simplified Strategic Planning, Inc.  He can be reached at rbradford@cssp.com.

Dana Baldwin is Senior Strategist with the Center for Simplified Strategic Planning, Inc.  He can be reached by email at baldwin@cssp.com.

“Ecosystem” is a funny word to use when talking about strategy.  Historically, the term has been used to talk about natural ecosystems.  So how can we use that understanding for a better sense of how our strategy can work?

In nature, one of the key concepts we can use to understand ecosystems is a dynamic model of flows.

Small creatures eat plants and other small creatures.  Bigger carnivores eat those creatures, and so on.  Every bit of the ecosystem is somehow connected to other bits and captures energy and transforms it into life.

In business, we also see these types of flows.

Suppliers feed downstream customers, who may in turn have other customers, and so on.  At times, we don’t always think about how the little bits add up to success or failure for the whole system.  We are appropriately thinking about optimizing the effectiveness of our part of the system.  We can, however, step back and look at the bigger picture, and gain some very useful insights.

Taking a step back from most industries starts with recognizing the need being served.

By need, I don’t just mean desire – I mean the functional or psychological reason why customers require a product or service.  The need for petroleum is not gasoline or even fuel, it’s energy.  Similarly, the need for telephone service is communication.  These needs are important because without them, your product or service cannot exist.  They are also important for understanding why your product or service is chosen to serve a particular need.

For example, we use oil for fuel to get energy not because it’s so much better than, say, honey.

We use oil because it’s fundamentally cheaper to obtain and convert to a usable form for energy production.  If you are in the oil business, you are obtaining and converting oil into a convenient source of energy.  When that becomes less convenient or more expensive, you’ll see a fundamental shift in your markets, as customers adapt.

This is exactly the sort of thing we see in natural ecosystems.

Where I live, as the weather gets cold, mice seek any warm space they can squeeze into.  If you have an older house – as I do – this means cold weather seems to produce an explosion of mice.  The natural consequence of this is my household is a bonanza of mice for my cat.  He loves this time of year, because the new mice are naturally less clever about hiding in a house.  That makes them easy prey.

If that sounds like your industry, there’s a reason for it.

Rising oil prices, tariffs, or falling capital costs may cause your market to experience new infestations of unfamiliar competitors.  But, just like the mice, they may be easy pickings for a prepared player.  I’ve seen such changes cause waves of new players, and often, the carnage is just as spectacular as that caused by my cat.

The interesting thing about this industry ecosystem analogy is that it points to workable strategies that lead to success and survival.

First, swarming into a market with lots of other new players is more dangerous than you might think.  It pays to look about for a niche to occupy to survive and thrive in the initial spasm of growth and failure that often occurs.  Second, success is often easier for the more adaptable players, those who learn to shift to advantageous markets when things get difficult.  Third, it’s worth asking who the predator may be in these situations, for two reasons.  For one thing, maybe YOU can be the predator.  We’d all rather be the cat than the mouse, in this analogy.  On the other hand, being aware of the predator – if it isn’t you – really helps you to avoid becoming prey.

What does your industry ecosystem look like?

Are there mice swarming into part of it, only to be eaten by waiting cats?  When you think about big changes going on in your industry, it might pay to take a few minutes to look at the big picture you’ll wrestle with in your strategic planning.

If you’d like help understanding how to use this analogy with your industry, get in touch and we’ll help you lay out a terrific map to success in doing so.  Consider holding a one-day workshop on Simplified Strategic Planning.

For more on Strategic Thinking, click here.

Robert Bradford is President & CEO of the Center for Simplified Strategic Planning, Inc.  He can be reached at rbradford@cssp.com.

M. Dana Baldwin is Senior Strategist with Center for Simplified Strategic Planning, Inc. He can be reached by email at: baldwin@cssp.com