Center for Simplified Strategic Planning

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  • Make strategic thinking easier

    You’ve seen it happen, perhaps dozens of times:  A company makes some choice that looks good on paper, but leads to major strategic problems.  No one is immune to this problem, because good strategic thinking is hard.  Why is this?  And how can we make strategic thinking easier?

    strategic thinking is hardThere are three basic reasons why good strategic thinking is hard.  They all revolve around the way our brains frame decision making.  Thousands of years ago, our ancestors had very real problems that were more important than strategic thinking.  All the strategy in the world won’t help you if you’ve been eaten by a lion.  Much of our nervous system is finely tuned to this critical survival situation – even though we rarely will encounter such situations.

    1. Your brain is looking for a lion, and there is no lion

    In addition to being eaten, ancient humans had to do some things regularly to survive.  Getting enough food was a constant, serious issue.  This led much human behavior to be structured around scarcity, and making sure there was enough to survive.

    2. It’s easy to forget that you aren’t starving

    Finally, even in modern life, it is easiest to think about things in simple, immediate ways.  “You can never be too rich or too thin” suggests that very important things can always be thought of as quantities, and that you always want more.  If a few deer are good for hunting, a massive deer population should be even better – except it isn’t.  Populations have limits, and very large populations bring problems – like disease – that small populations never have.  Likewise, cutting costs leads to higher profit, until it destroys the trust customers have in your brand.

    3.  It’s easier to always seek more than it is to understand the right amount.

    These are not problems that come from too little knowledge, or lack of rigorous thinking.  They are problems that come from thinking the way we normally do.  Most of the time, our thinking seems sensible because it is either reacting to the world around us, or it is tactical thinking.  This kind of thinking often yields great results, in the short term.  In strategy, this kind of thinking can lead to disaster.

    So, how can we stop thinking this way and think more strategically?  Is there a way to ignore a million years of evolution and force our brains to focus on a different approach?  The simple answer is yes, but it can be difficult.  Here are three simple changes that make strategic thinking easier.

    1. Zoom out

    To get away from looking for lions in your strategic thinking, back away from the immediate problem.  A lion will dominate your thinking when it’s close, but when you are a hundred miles from any lions, you can start to think about how to avoid lions completely.  One great way to do thing in business decisions is to ask yourself to play out the effects of your decisions over a very long period of time.  Will your choice still have benefits in 10 years?  How could it create problems?

    2. Look for abundance

    Instead of thinking in terms of starvation, strategic thinking should emphasize creating plenty.  Let’s say your choice requires more money, for example.  Where could that money come from?  Why would money flow in to your company to pay for things?  In many cases, examining the systems that surround your business decisions can lead to strategic changes that change the game from scarcity to abundance.

    3. Find the dichotomy

    When examining strategic decisions, you can easily see a bigger picture by finding the limits of your choices.  What would happen if the labor cost were zero?  How would customers respond to more expensive raw materials at a higher price?  Much of our world reflects a balance between two forces – the desire of customers to get the best products and services they can, and the desire of customers to spend as little money as possible.  Seeing your decisions as a way to anchor your brand to a point on that continuum will help you avoid some of the disasters that come from a “more is better” approach.  The key to this approach is finding where the tension lies in your own markets, and expressing it as a choice between two extremes, like “cheaper or faster” or “convenient or enjoyable”

    These are just a few ideas about how to think more strategically in your daily life.  If you’d like to learn more about strategic thinking and make strategic thinking easier for your team, attend our 4 hour webinar on Strategic Thinking on September 18, 2020.  You’ll be glad you did.

     

     

  • Strategic Performance

    One of the great challenges in executing a strategic plan is getting the team to perform and be motivated by the strategy. Indeed, strategic performance in implementation is the achilles heel of strategic planning.  It’s common to hear people say “We did strategic planning, but it didn’t change anything.”  Obviously, the way you approach strategic planning should be oriented to getting better strategic performance from your whole organization. It turns out that by looking at things that enhance individual performance, we can find corollaries in team performance that are very useful for executing your strategic plan.

     

    We often pay so much attention to the strategy that we disregard the challenges of execution.  By thinking about how you can enhance the performance of your executive team in strategy implementation, we can achieve much better results.

     

    There are three main elements that will increase your teams performance in a strategic plan. These elements are

    1. Midpoint goals.
    2. Visualizing immediate success.
    3. Framing a strategy uniquely.

    Strategic Performance from Mid-point goals

    Focusing on midpoint goals is common sense in many situations. If you are looking for a spouse, you don’t run into a crowd of people and start introducing yourself as a prospective future spouse. A commonsense approach to this is to take the process in steps. That means you start with an introduction.  Once you are introduced, you don’t propose marriage – you propose a date, and then maybe some more dates. There are two reasons why this works. First, we make much better progress if we work towards the small steps that lead to the big change. Second, people can feel overwhelmed by a seemingly impossible large goal. While some people who thrive on an audacious goal, most people will feel overwhelmed.  They may not take action on an audacious goal unless you give them concrete steps that they can take today that way I have a payoff in the near future.

    In Simplified Strategic Planning, we achieve this result in two ways.  First, we set annual objectives that are possibly intermediary steps to achieving the longer-term vision.  Second, we create action plans by splitting those objectives into smaller, more easily attained steps.

    Strategic Performance from Visualization

    The next approach, visualizing success, has some excellent examples available in real world business. For example, consider the pink Cadillac used at Mary Kay cosmetics. Leading salespeople are shown pink Cadillacs owned by higher level salespeople in the organization. These pink Cadillacs are awarded by the organization to salespeople who surpass $1 million in sales. At sales events, salespeople are encouraged to experience the reward.  They don’t just look at the pink Cadillac but get behind the wheel and imagine themselves getting one of these for exceeding $1 million in sales. This visualization creates an immediacy of the reward and starts the brain down the pathways that lead to the ultimate achievement.

    A skilled facilitator will use this visualization technique in several points in the strategic planning process.  For example, when thinking of opportunities, it’s useful to ask the team to imagine a successful future.  By thinking about how they reach that point, the team will have an easier way to identify strategically useful opportunities.

    Strategic Performance from Re-framing

    The third technique, reframing is as useful as a strategic tool as it is as a motivation and performance tool. The idea here is to reframe what your company is doing.  It’s best to do this uniquely so that people think of themselves as doing something interesting and unusual. The reason this is often a good strategy tool, is that reframing often helps reorient the organization.  For strategic purposes, we want to move towards an entirely different approach to competing in the marketplace with this new orientation. A good example of this is Southwest Airlines in the 1980s.  Southwest famously began thinking of themselves not as competing with other airlines, but as competing with the bus and the train. This reframing was built around and understanding of competing and serving the fundamental need of the customer, rather than focusing on the way that need is met.

    Strategic Performance Improvement

    The application of each of these three approaches has been demonstrated to improve individual performance. In Clearer, Closer, Better: How Successful People See the World, by Emily Balcetis, we see examples of controlled studies of individual performance varying tasks, whether athletic or mental in nature.  These studies showed that these three techniques can measurably improve how well people perform.  By using these techniques with your team, you should also be able not just to motivate the individuals in the team but you enhance the performance and the alignment of your entire management team.

    If you would like to apply these approaches to your own strategic plan in a way that will yield better implementation and more effective growth and profitability, click on the link below to attend our next virtual program on strategic thinking, or contact us to discuss how we can actually turn this into reality in your organization through the strategic planning process

     

     

  • Predicting with leading indicators

    We can improve our predictions in strategic planning by predicting with leading indicators.  You may have hear of the Composite Leading Indicators, a statistic used by the Federal Reserve to predict recessions.  This tool is a good way to anticipate changes in a dynamic system.  Choosing important leading indicators for your business may be simpler than it would appear.

    The first step in understanding leading indicators is to recognize the shape of the curves predominant in your system.  As mentioned earlier, there are three basic types – stable, oscillating and geometric.  Most important assumptions we will have to make will involve stable and oscillating curves, as geometric curves tend to reach some limit fairly quickly.

    If you are looking for leading indicators for a stable change, you’ll want to look for any event or change that tends to happen before change in your industry.  For example, food consumption in most countries will grow with the population.  While babies don’t usually consumer lobster, for example, it’s fairly easy to predict that a part of the population will want to eat lobster some of the time when they are older.  This means that an increase in births will be followed by an increase in lobster demand – a few years later.

    This approach can be applied to many markets with fairly stable demand.  Appliance sales, for example, have two components – appliances bought for new dwellings, and appliances purchased to replace old appliances.  Both can be predicted relatively well with information about new housing construction and appliance longevity.  This type of correlation can be complicated by the fact that one of the components – new housing construction – may be affected by how easily people can purchase new dwellings.  Even so, good predictions can be made about appliance sales based on these two factors.

    predicting with leading indicators - auto sales 1951-2019With oscillating curves, you have a slightly more difficult task predicting with leading indicators.  This is because the wavelike form of the oscillating curve can vary a lot in both frequency (the number of waves per time period) and amplitude (the distance between the top and the bottom of the curve).  Usually, we can understand both by examining historical data.  For example, if you look at the graph here, you see data on car sales in the USA from 1951-2019.  You can see that there is clear oscillation, largely driven by purchasing ability.  While the frequency varies from decade to decade, there is a clear 3-5 year space between the peaks in the curve and the valleys that follow in most cycles.  This would be a decent frequency to assume for future cycles in auto sales.

    The amplitude of this curve is a little more difficult to estimate.  In this time period, we see swings by as much as 3 million vehicles, but we also see some cycles with swings of only about 1 million vehicles.  In addition, some upward swings are small while the downward portion is much larger.  Still, it’s reasonable to assume that future swings will be in the 1-3 million vehicle range.

    For accurate leading indicators, you would need to examine any data you can find relating to things that would explain the shift from increase to decrease in the curve.  For auto sales, it’s practical to assume a large part of this oscillation is driven by the economy.  Indeed, the decision making process in purchasing a car usually starts with an assessment of whether a new vehicle is affordable.  This means that personal income and interest rate numbers would make good leading indicators.  It also means that the things that cause upward and downward shifts in those numbers are likely to set the frequency of the auto sales numbers.

    A simple way to help predict such oscillating numbers, then, is to ask what leading indicator shows us the inflection point – where the curve shifts from up to down, or down to up.  This will make predicting with leading indicators much more useful with an oscillating curve.

    Looking at our predictions for things like sales and costs can be a critical part of strategic planning.  If you’d like to improve your own understanding of making assumptions and using them in your strategy, you’ll want to attend our live online seminar on Simplified Strategic Planning.

  • How to make better predictions 1 – the shape of the curve

    How to make better predictions 1 – the shape of the curve

    One of the things we cannot avoid in strategic thinking is making predictions.  While predictions, being assumptions, inevitably carry the risk of error, there are things we can do to make better predictions.  When you can match an understanding of future trends with a clear vision, your plans are much more likely to be successful.

    Making better predictions with curvesIn any complex system built around process flows and limits, we can graph changes over time.  It’s common to refer to a simple XY graph over time as a curve, and the behavior of curves is a very important part of understanding how these systems will change.  If we want to predict automobile sales, new technology adoption, population trends or even the stock market, some simple ideas about the shape of these curves can lead to much better predictions about the future.

    Common curve shapes

    There are three common curve shapes we encounter.  While I won’t go into the math, it’s important to remember these shapes can be combined to yield other, different shapes.  The three basic types are stable, oscillating and geometric.  The stable curve is just what it sounds like – basically a straight line.  It can have a flat slope – growing arithmetically over time – but it doesn’t do the kinds of ups and downs we often see in graphs of the economy or the stock market.  It’s fairly easy to make better predictions with a stable curve because the slope clearly indicates the rate of change.

    Oscillating curves

    The second curve shape, oscillating, is very common in complex systems.  This is because complex systems change behavior as limits are approached.  As an example, consider a population of squirrels on an island.  When food is plentiful, the population soars, but when the population reaches a certain point, there is not enough food, and starvation results.  This leads to a crash in population, and the cycle can start all over again.  When you see a graph with consistent undulations, like a sine wave, you are likely seeing a depiction of an oscillating curve.  If you are forecasting around an oscillating curve shape, you can make better predictions by knowing the causes of the cycles you see in the curve.

    Geometric curves

    The third curve shape is geometric, and it’s common when looking at short term changes, but uncommon over the long term.  This is because the geometric curve represents something that is growing at a geometric rate, where each succeeding time period has a higher rate of growth (or decline).  The reason these are rare over long periods of time is that limits often arise that cause the curve to peak out.  Interestingly, the curve after the peak may either become stable and flat, or decline precipitously.  When there is a repeated cycle of geometric growth followed by geometric decline, we get an oscillating curve.  This means that if you following a geometric curve long enough, you’re likely to see it become and oscillating curve or it will plateau, looking a lot like a simple step up or down.

    Example of curve shapes in analysing change in an industry

    The reason we want to understand these shapes is that curves can be fairly predictable.  Here’s an example:  in 2000, air travel was becoming less expensive and more pervasive.  The price competition in the industry combined with the ease of online booking was driving a steady increase in passenger miles.  This was not a geometric growth, but it was a positive time for volume in the industry.  Some heavily travelled routes, like New York to Boston, were seeing hourly flight departures that suggested the whole industry was beginning to resemble commuter bussing.  On 9/11 in 2001, terrorist attacks cause a dramatic downward step in that curve which lasted months.  As the industry recovered, restrictions, higher costs and economic pressure shifted the entire curve downward, but it did resume its upward trend – at a slower pace.  If you were a supplier to that industry, or simply invested in airline stocks, understanding this behavior could lead you to some astute observations about the future of the industry.

    This kind of prediction is exactly the kind of thing we need to do in our strategic thinking.  While no one can predict the kind of disaster that leads to a step down, it was useful to note that the effect of the attacks was a sharp step down followed by lower stable growth.  An important question for your business is what the curves you see will do in the next few years.  Do you anticipate a dramatic step up, a flat upward trend, or an oscillating curve that may slope upward?  One of the most important ways to make these predictions well is to understand the real world factors that lead to these different shapes.  If you can accurately assess the dynamics of your environment, it’s possible to do an excellent job of thinking strategically about where your organization should go.

    If you are considering new directions for your organization, now is an excellent time to bring new strategic thinking into your strategic planning process.  Our online seminar is a great way to learn more about strategic thinking and how to beat or avoid your competition.

  • Planning in Uncertain Times

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  • The Power of “Both…And” Thinking

    Thomas E. Ambler, Senior Consultant, Center for Simplified Strategic Planning, Inc.

    Note: This article was previously published in Compass Points in February 2006

    Strategic Planning Expert
    Strategic Planning Expert

    In a previous article I dealt with the strategic impact of the “Golden Rule” approach to business. Here I want to consider an important facet of the “Golden Rule” approach, the power of “both…and” thinking. “Both…and” thinking starts with really listening. Then it takes the best and most passionately held parts of each party’s position and combines them with that of others to produce a new and better alternative. Covey calls this the “Third Alternative” in his book, The 8th Habit. He states on page 187, “The Third Alternative isn’t my way, it isn’t your way-it’s our way. It’s not a compromise halfway between your way and my way; it’s better than a compromise…. The Third Alternative is a better alternative than any that have been proposed.” “Both…and” thinking is a practice I adopted over 30 years ago and have used with genuine success in my own general management career, consulting practice and personal life. It contrasts sharply with the more prevalent “either…or,” positional approach predicated on the generally false assumption that the supply of resources and recognition is scarce.

    Because of our pervasive and natural tendency toward self-centeredness and pride, we generally define success as “winning-on our terms.” As long as others we work with have these same terms, we can become a winning team. Unfortunately, we normally encounter different perspectives and goals combined with pride, a recipe for conflict and mistrust. In a highly competitive society that generally buys into the battlefield/athletic paradigm that “winning is everything and losing is nothing,” we find ourselves engaged in “win-lose,” “line in the sand,” “either…or” thinking. Inevitably, this divisive behavior causes us to spin our wheels, resulting in lots of heat but no forward motion. It happens so often that we can’t help asking the question, “What percentage of the 450,000 waking hours in our lifetimes do we waste in arguments generated by ‘either…or’ thinking?”

    Decision-making is the most important activity in all of life. In the corporate arena it typically involves conflicting perspectives among those who participate in the decision. This conflict can set up an unhealthy “either…or” situation that degenerates into a “herding of cats” leadership issue. Therefore, an effective leader draws out the thoughts of his or her people and models “both…and” thinking to produce a group decision that the team can celebrate as better than any one person’s contribution. This is likely one of the primary attributes of Jim Collins’ Good to Great “Level 5 Leaders.” A Level 5 Leader takes the view that success is not about winning personally but rather about winning as an organization. Like Level 5 Leadership, the beauty of the “both…and” approach is that it can be practiced by anyone, not just the recognized leader. Furthermore, it contributes to success even when only one person in a group practices it.

    Consider examples where you have seen “both…and” thinking practiced. Perhaps it’s been in a successful business negotiation. Maybe it’s been working on a major project with a team where things needed to be hashed out. Or perhaps it’s been a brainstorming session that was intentionally structured to remove the need to win individually. You engaged with others in a powerful and stimulating way and contributed ideas willingly to develop big “both…and” concepts owned by the entire team. This is synergy and it happens only when you choose not to pursue the natural inclination toward ‘either…or’ behavior. Strategic planning teams who have successfully practiced “checking their egos at the door” have experienced this same synergy.

    “both…and” thinking can become “grooved” when two requirements are satisfied-you have the desire to rise above self-centeredness and the discipline to practice it. So when you feel yourself getting exercised emotionally or being drawn into an argument, challenge yourself (and perhaps others) with the question, “am I engaging in ‘either…or’ thinking?” If so, follow with the question, “how can I elevate my thinking to a ‘both…and’ level?”

    Practice a “both…and” approach and see if you don’t (a) have more fun, (b) have more friends and (c) have greater business and personal success. Those who use it like it!

    For information on how to take your strategic planning to the next level, please listen to our webinar: Why Isn’t My Strategic Planning Working?

    © Copyright 2015 by Center for Simplified Strategic Planning, Inc., Ann Arbor, MI — Reprint permission granted with full attribution.

    Tom Ambler is a Senior Consultant with Center for Simplified Strategic Planning, Inc. He can be reached by email at ambler@cssp.com

  • Focus

    By M. Dana Baldwin, Senior Consultant

    Note: This article was previously published in Compass Points March 2006.

    Strategic Planning Expert
    Strategic Planning Expert

    Why is focus so important to success in our businesses? We’ve all heard of the person who wanted to clean off his desk, and couldn’t imagine why it wasn’t done by the end of the day. When he began to think about what he had done, he listed the following: On his way to his office to clean off his desk, he noticed that the light in the back hall was on, so he went to turn it off. When he got to the back hall, he saw that the mail had not been opened, so he picked it up to open. After he opened the mail, he took the discarded envelopes to the trash and realized that the basket was full and should be emptied. As he took the basket out to empty, he saw the light bulb in the garage was out, so he put the basket down and searched for a new bulb. Etc., etc…. You can easily fill out the rest of the story.

    What does this story tell us about focus? By not focusing on the specific goals he wanted to accomplish, our person really achieved very little of what he set out to do. How do companies lose their way? Unfortunately, it isn’t all that hard. There are multiple opportunities for us to stray from our chosen path.

    One example: A customer may call with a request which is close to, but not exactly a part of, what we do: a product or service similar to our existing products which will require re-design, development, testing and debugging, or which may require investing in new or different technology or training in order to be able to effectively perform.

    If we continue, we may stray beyond our capabilities. And, we may have to invest time, people and money in developing products or services which do not fit our strategies.

    Can we avoid distractions while taking advantage of real opportunities which come our way? We need a process that reviews opportunities which arise outside our core businesses, so they may be evaluated on a consistent basis. This process must focus on our strategies on which we base our business, and allow the introduction of new opportunities while rigorously evaluating each for its impact on the company’s future.

    To learn ways to take your strategic planning to the next level please listen to our webinar:  Why my strategic planning isn’t working.

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

    © Copyright 2015 by Center for Simplified Strategic Planning, Inc., Ann Arbor, MI — Reprint permission granted with full attribution.

  • Strategic Planning: Are Your Decisions Based on Facts or Opinions?

    By Denise Harrison, Senior Consultant

    Strategic Planning Expert
    Strategic Planning Expert

    Many people return from a strategic planning retreat frustrated, often asking: Were we really concentrating on what is important or were we focusing on what was “top of mind”?  Did we make the right decisions or were we swayed by the most persuasive person?

    A Better Way to Make Decisions: Thoughtful Consideration Based on Research

    One way to prevent making decisions based on opinions and “top of mind” thinking would be to split your strategic planning process into three steps:

    1. Situation Analysis and Research Identification
    2. Strategic Formulation (based on the above research)
    3. Implementation – Turning Strategy into Action

    Critically, Step 1 starts your strategic planning process off on solid footing, focusing on the current situation and identifying the important areas of research.  These should include:

    • Current business segments: Are we positioned to meet their future needs? How are we differentiated?
    • Competition: What are they up to? How are they positioned in the market?
    • Other considerations that can change the competitive landscape: technology, suppliers, economy and regulations?
    • Opportunities: What are they?  What is each one’s potential?  What is the downside risk?

    Taking the time to research these topics and any others that your team deems worthy of research before the strategy formulation session allows for better decisions in which all team members are equipped to participate.  It will enable your team to develop a strategy that will really differentiate you from the competition and set you on the path for future success.

    What else?

    Another important component of the research phase is to have the research collected in a consistent format.  Having a template for the business segment, competitor and opportunity research is particularly important.  This consistent format allows you to compare each topic given the same information rather than miscellaneous bits and pieces pulled together to present the researcher’s thoughts in a favorable light.  This consistency allows for rigorous discussion of where to expend your company’s resources in order to achieve the best possible benefit.

    If you would like to know how to make your strategic planning sessions more fact-based please contact me at harrison@cssp.com.

    For more information on how to take your strategic planning to the next level please listen to our webinar: Why Isn’t My Strategic Planning Working?

    Denise Harrison is a senior consultant for the Center for Simplified Strategic Planning, Inc. She can be reached at  harrison@cssp.com.

    © Copyright 2015 by Center for Simplified Strategic Planning, Inc., Ann Arbor, MI — Reprint permission granted with full attribution.

  • How Engaged are You as a Leader?

    By M. Dana Baldwin, Senior Consultant

    Strategic Planning Expert
    Strategic Planning Expert

    Many people, including yours truly, have written extensively on the value of increasing employee engagement.  There are many good reasons to do so.  Included are: Better attitudes, better involvement in the success of the company or organization, higher productivity, better quality, lower scrap or rejects, better profitability, higher levels of internal entrepreneurship, more suggestions for improvement and overall better relationships within the company.

    But, how about the engagement of those at the top of the organization with the rest of the organization?  As a leader, are you realistically engaged with your company, your people, your suppliers, your customers and prospects, or are you somewhat or totally isolated from all the day to day situations, pressures and possibilities that being engaged could force you to confront and deal with?

    How open is your office door, really?  This doesn’t mean you have to have unfettered 24 hour a day open access, but it might tell you a lot if no one is allowed in to talk with you without going through your gatekeeper and having a good reason to meet with you.

    Another question:  How often do you escape the confines of your office to explore different parts of your office and factory floor/production area?  Years ago, George Odiorne postulated that MBWA (Managing By Wandering Around) was a positive way to keep your finger on the pulse of the organization.  By walking around your office and production areas, talking with people at random and listening even more than you were talking, you would learn much about the tenor of things in your organization.  Are your people open to talking with you candidly, or are they reticent to bring up any uncomfortable subjects, to discuss problems with you or to offer constructive suggestions about solving problems or on new products or services, or on how to improve what your organization is already doing?  MBWA will tell you quickly what the atmosphere, and thus the environment in your organization is, and whether you have a problem of having or not having the trust of your people.

    The external equivalent of MBWA is taking time to visit or meet with both suppliers and customers.  A few low key meetings with key suppliers, aimed at establishing a good rapport, can tell you if your organization has good relationships or some problem areas.  Doing this regularly can help you establish an ongoing positive situation, or it can help you understand what problems might exist and start your company down the road to resolving those issues and bettering your collaborations.

    Similarly, by visiting key customers/clients once in a while, you can build your communications and relationships to a higher level, increasing your organization’s visibility and connections.  This should help improve the organization’s levels of trust and reliability in the eyes of your customer/client.

    Keeping oneself isolated and unavailable is usually not the best way to keep involved in both the internal and external sides of the company/organization.  Becoming more visible, more available and involved can’t help but improve your organization’s responsiveness and, in the long run, profitability and reliability.

    For help in improving your strategic planning, including your internal and external engagement and communications, please contact me at: baldwin@cssp.com or at 616-575-3193.

    Another way to enhance engagement is to educate and align the organization to the strategic plan.  To learn more about strategic alignment, please listen to our webinar: Strategic Alignment: How to get your people to make your strategies work.

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

    © Copyright 2015 by Center for Simplified Strategic Planning, Inc., Ann Arbor, MI — Reprint permission granted with full attribution.

  • Who Are You? Win with Stories

    By Thomas E. Ambler, Senior Consultant

    This article was previously published in Compass Points September 2007

    Strategic Planning Expert
    Strategic Planning Expert

    What stories do you find yourself repeatedly telling people inside and outside your walls to illustrate “who you are” and what values are key to your organization’s success? Why do you do that? I’ll tell you why. You recognize that people love stories, particularly ones that reflect human struggle and triumph and illustrate lasting values.

    If you are a leader and are not sharing important stories with others, you are missing out on a significant strategic success factor used by many companies you admire and probably your competitors as well. Why are stories really important? They are typically the best means of intentionally communicating your values. The beauty of a story is that you need only remember the “punch line” and you can reconstruct the whole story and easily internalize its meaning. In several of my previous articles (1) I have made the case for how crucial core values are to culture and how crucial culture is to sustainable competitive advantage. Culture influences all aspects of every organizational function–culture is the “glue” of an organization. As noted in the previous articles, culture is tantamount to being a “squishy” strategic competency and can be a cornerstone of a winning strategy.

    Many highly successful organizations rely heavily on stories. Which ones come to your mind? How about Nike, GE, Johnson & Johnson, Wal-Mart, HP, Southwest Airlines, IBM or Fedex? How about the Navy Seals, or The Metropolitan Opera? How about your own organization and some of your customers or suppliers?

    How familiar are you with some of the ins and outs of storytelling? Let’s take a look at some of them.

    Storytelling Principles

    Nike and GE are great examples from which to extract some principles of effective storytelling for shaping winning cultures. Both have:

    • Clearly defined the cultural values they want to promote (perpetuate or change) — (e.g., GE’s “Shared Values,” which committed to such cultural characteristics as continual change, constructive conflict, pervasive doing the right thing, etc.)
    • Identified heroes with heroic stories that communicate values — (e.g., Nike founders Bowerman and Knight and runner Prefontaine with their legendary innovative spirit and commitment to helping athletes and to “Just Doing It”)
    • Icons that symbolize their values– (e.g., GE’s Crotonville Management Development Institute or Nike’s store, which is Nike’s Smithsonian Institute)
    • Processes that fosters effective, organic transmission of the values to all who need to believe in them and adopt them for their shared success–(e.g., GE’s “Work-out” process of management development and modeling by top management or Nike’s high-level, traveling “storytellers, who work with all levels in the company and with value chain partners)


    Additional principles to consider incorporating into your culture-building process include:

    • Heroes: The companies above had ready-made heroes for great stories. Organizations that recognize the importance of culture will not only use existing heroes but will often create heroes to provide the story that conveys the desired cultural trait. Created heroes are often energized to do heroic deeds because they know that they have been placed in positions that are both highly visible and have produced situational heroes in the past. Outlaws and mavericks also make great heroes for stories.
    • Cultural Network: Your leadership team needs to recognize and exploit your organization’s “Cultural Network.” This major part of the amorphous, informal organizational structure that doesn’t show up on your official Organization Chart is a very real and powerful force for exercising influence over the direction of the organization and for promoting cultural characteristics that you want to have stick. There are recognizable roles in most Cultural Networks, including:
      • The Storytellers (share the stories of the heroes, shape the values of new employees, have access to a lot of information)
      • The Priests (guardians of the values and shepherds of the flock, helping in times of personal need)
      • The Whisperer (has the ear of key people)
      • The Administrative Assistants
      • The Spy (a storyteller loyal to you and “watching your back”)
      • The Gossip
      • The Cabal (two or more people, who in a common situation will act in unison)

    Like any networking process cultural networking requires a continuing investment in getting to know your people at multiple levels. (To understand Cultural Networks at a deeper level, consult the book entitled, Corporate Cultures–The Rites and Rituals of Corporate Life (2).)

    • Story Development Process: Developing stories is an art worth cultivating. It involves multiple steps:
      • Finding stories–Finding stories that support your values may require a harvesting process with your people that draws out the gemstones from history that represent “who you are” and inform how you do things.
      • Digging into stories–Draw out things like moments of great pride or a person who has had great impact inside or outside of the organization. Multiple stories that illustrate the same value are powerful.
      • Selecting Stories–Generally, you will select stories because they support a goal or espoused value of the organization. For credibility, one must be certain that the stories shared have enough “shadows” of the organization to include people who may be on the margins and to indicate where there are disconnects between reality and desired condition. You need a real-life balance of dark and light stories about the organization.
      • Crafting Stories–Stories need to be concrete, full of details and compelling to engage people at every level.
      • Embodying Stories–Live oral storytelling is far preferable to video, which is passive. It can be enhanced by props, pictures, icons, etc. Live is a full body experience that builds a relationship with trust and makes the stories real and engaging.

    (To delve further into story development consult the book entitled, Wake Me Up When the Data Is Over (3).)

    Stories are a means of branding–internally and externally. Those that have real value for internal culture are often the very same ones that can cement your market brand (e.g., Nordstrom and the legendary return of tires or 3M and the serendipitous development of Post-Its). Know your stories, manage your stories and milk your stories.

    Good or bad, your organization will have a culture and it will have its values. They can either (a) be clearly understood and fostered to become a big-time, winning strength or (b) they can be fuzzy and confused and dilute your effectiveness. It’s your choice–winning cultures don’t happen by accident. They are built, transformed and sustained by focusing energy and continual commitment, much of it through stories. Are you winning with yours?

    References:
    1. T. E. Ambler, “The Strategic Value of Values,” Compass Points (CSSP’s Quarterly Newsletter); “Know Thyself–Culture in Strategic Management,” Course and Direction(CSSP’s E-zine); “Winning the High Way–Organizational Success by the Golden Rule,”Course and Direction (CSSP’s E-zine) (all available free from the Article Archives in the Tools and Resources section of www.cssp.com)
    2. Terrence E. Deal and Allan A. Kennedy, Corporate Cultures–The Rites and Rituals of Corporate Life, (Cambridge, MA: Perseus Publishing, 2000)
    3. Lori L. Silverman, Wake Me Up When the Data Is Over–How Organizations Use Stories to Drive Results, (San Francisco,CA: Jossey-Bass, 2006)

    For more information on how to take your strategic planning to the next level please listen to our webinar: Why Isn’t My Strategic Planning Working?

    © Copyright 2011 by Center for Simplified Strategic Planning, Inc., Ann Arbor, MI — Reprint permission granted with full attribution.

    Tom Ambler is a Senior Consultant with Center for Simplified Strategic Planning, Inc. He can be reached by email at ambler@cssp.com

  • Customer Loyalty — Is it Your Company’s Priority?

    By M. Dana Baldwin, Senior Consultant

    This article was previously published in Compass Points in November 2007

    Strategic Planning Expert
    Strategic Planning Expert

    Most companies advertise their loyalty to their customers, but how many really are as loyal as they profess to be? What specific actions have they committed to which will build true customer loyalty? How is customer loyalty really measured?

    Where does building customer loyalty start? Upon reflection, it should become obvious that to have loyal customers, one needs to have a loyal staff. What actions has your company taken to establish a positive, reinforcing, committed attitude within your staff? What are the components of building staff loyalty?

    Staff loyalty should start with having an atmosphere within the company that encourages loyalty, low turn-over and continuing education or mentoring of many key employees. Starbucks works very hard at building employee loyalty so that their employees will make their customers feel special and appreciated. This involves training and setting an atmosphere in which the employees feel valued, and feel encouraged to pass on their positive attitudes towards the customers.

    How often does your company listen to your customers? Do you regularly ask your customers how well you are meeting their needs and preferences? Does your company ask your customers — certainly your best customers at a minimum — what else you could do to provide even better service and satisfaction? Are there unmet preferences that should be addressed, in order to build an even deeper relationship between companies and their customers? Are their complaints well received, and, more importantly, acted upon in a timely manner? Make it easy for customers to complain, but only if you really intend to do something about the complaints. Response time guidelines should be established in order to keep the problems at a low level of intensity, because we all have had problems escalate when it takes too long for a response to be made.

    Another part of listening to your customers is how well you act to improve your ability to meet and/or exceed your customers’ rising expectations. Are you really responsive? If you are, you likely are perceived as providing good service to your customers. If not, why not, and what needs to be done to change this approach to building customer satisfaction? Are your first contact employees — those who your customers first encounter when contacting your company — well-trained in understanding customer needs and preferences, and in responding to these needs and preferences in a consistent and responsible manner, within the confines of what is possible for the company to actually do for the customers? Are they well-equipped to respond both verbally and in writing? Is their grammar good enough to represent the company positively, and do they have the resources within the company they can contact in order to resolve whatever the customers requests, in a timely and appropriate manner?

    Finally, how do you truly measure customer loyalty? It is very easy to measure loyalty by accepting what each customer says. The true measure is found by examining what each customer actually does.  A customer’s buying behavior, not their expressed attitude, is the real measure of their loyalty. By examining what each customer actually does, you can tell which are truly loyal, and, using this approach as a guide, you can determine which customers really value your company and the relationships you are building.

    If you think you may have some of the challenges outlined above, one good approach is to improve your strategic planning efforts.  You can start this by attending one of our highly acclaimed seminars Simplified Strategic Planning, or by contacting us at:  to discuss your situation.

    M. Dana Baldwin is a Senior Consultant with Center for Simplified Strategic Planning, Inc. He can be reached by email at: .

  • Kodak’s Big Bet: “To Be or Not To Be”

    By Thomas E. Ambler, Senior Consultant

    Strategic Planning Expert
    Strategic Planning Expert

    Reprinted from Course & Direction May 2007

    Since the millennium Eastman Kodak Co. has been under attack by a Killer App known as Digital Imaging. In the last several years it has suffered the loss of much of its historical core business (as much as 20% per year) and has had to seek a way to milk its past while reinventing itself as a Digital Imaging company. On February 6, 2007 CEO Perez announced the immediate launch of Kodak’s reinvented inkjet printer and business model surrounding it as means of reinventing Kodak. In its issue Business Week describes the Kodak situation in an excellent and captivating article entitled “Kodak’s Moment of Truth”.

    Here is a case of a single high risk opportunity that is likely to be instrumental in transforming a major company. Students of business love to sink their teeth into this kind of case and, with incredible incisiveness based on 20/20 hindsight, glean the kernels of wisdom to share with their less learned siblings. In the real world top management teams don’t get to make their decisions based on 20/20 hindsight. You are likely so much in the thick of things that you suffer some pangs of conscience about separating yourself from operations for even a few days to consider where to take the company in the future (aka Strategic Planning). Naturally, you want to make the most of your time, particularly when considering new opportunities. One of the ways to do that is to subject your major opportunities to a screening tool that forces analysis of the factors that will make it succeed or fail  .Simplified Strategic Planning calls this tool a “Market Based Opportunity Screening Worksheet”.

    Let’s step back to 2003 and put ourselves in the shoes of Antonio Perez and his senior management team as they contemplate this pivotal opportunity in the face of an abysmal future. (This happens to be an opportunity for which we can sufficiently visualize the future ahead of time without stooping to 20/20 hindsight and see where the opportunity screening would take us.) You appointed me to complete the Screening Worksheet for the Strategic Planning Team and make my recommendations. Now it is time for you to review my work, challenge my strategic thinking and reach your own conclusions.

    Click here for the complete Market Based Opportunity Screening Worksheet.

    You may want to read the Business Week article anyway and see just how well the screening draws out the information needed to make at least a tentative decision to proceed or not with an opportunity. Having gone through the screening exercise, I believe, with all of the objectivity I can muster, that it ferrets out and presents the pertinent information every bit as well as a Business Week senior writer. Here is yet another confirmation that Simplified Strategic Planning has the power to guide top leaders through the bewildering maze of alternative directions.

    How about Kodak’s decision to proceed forward? What is your assessment of this new inkjet offering with its disruptive business model. Will it be sufficient “to be or not to be” the silver bullet that permits Kodak “to be or not to be” as much a winner in the future as it was in the past? Will you root for them? Will you buy their stock? Won’t it be fun in several years to engage in 20/20 hindsight and see how smart we were when we wore the shoes of the Kodak team?

    *** Now that it is several years after this article was first published, please “engage in 20/20 hindsight” and comment on this blog.

    Information Sources:

    1. Steve Hamm, 2007, “Kodak’s Moment of Truth,” Business Week, February 19
    2. Kodak Press Release, February 6, 2007, “Kodak Revolutionizes the Inkjet Industry,”www.kodak.com
    3. MLPF&S (Merrill Lynch) Research Report, February 13, 2007, “Eastman Kodak Co.–Looking Past the Restructuring”
    4. Morningstar Research Report, February 13, 2007, “Eastman Kodak–Kodak Enters Inkjet Printer Market”
    5. Ford Equity Research Report (BNY Jaywalk), March 2, 2007, “Eastman Kodak”

    Tom Ambler is a Consultant with Center for Simplified Strategic Planning, Inc.  He can be reached by email at ambler@cssp.com

    © Copyright 2014 by Center for Simplified Strategic Planning, Inc., Ann Arbor, MI — Reprint permission granted with full attribution.