Strategy Implementation
Strategy: A Simple View
Strategy is the choices you make to differentiate the value you create. It is the choices you make to deliver that value to customers. It is the choices you make to embed that capability into your organisation. Businesses need to differentiate to compete. Why would anyone buy from you rather than someone else if your…
Read MoreCutting Costs while Adding Value: Is it possible?
Can we reduce costs and add value at the same time? Yes. You can. But it takes some objectivity, some research and reflection and a willingness to change. Cutting costs while providing more value sounds counter-intuitive but it need not be. My experience in consulting, and in management prior to that, is that necessity is…
Read MoreDelivering Results: Consultants need to add value
Management consultants can be great value for money, but they do need to deliver results. A consultant is usually engaged for a specific time to deliver something of a certain quality – often for a fixed fee. The consultant makes a promise to deliver value and they need to keep that promise. Our management consulting…
Read MoreIf we learn lessons, mistakes can help us
Learning from mistakes is good. Learning from someone else’s mistakes is better. Learning from what went right is better still. We have all done things that didn’t go so well – sometimes we fail spectacularly. We tend to remember those moments. The embarrassment and sense of failure fades with time but we retain a lesson…
Read MoreThinking before implementing strategy
I work with a team which helps implement strategy – turning strategic objectives into results. Funnily enough, when we meet a new client the strategic drivers and objectives are often far from clear. Executives come to us because they want to do something and they want to make it happen quickly. That’s fine. We can…
Read MoreStrategic Doing: Faster Strategy, More Doing
Strategic Doing is a powerful way to achieve meaningful change and address complex problems. Complex, or sticky problems have no clear solution. They can absorb a huge quantity of resources – and often little obvious progress is made unravelling the issues or developing a viable way forward. They need a fresh approach to address these…
Read MoreStrategic Roadmaps: Unravelling the mystery
In many organisations, there’s an aura of mystique surrounding strategy. It can seem disconnected from the everyday, from business as usual, from what people do. I’ve found this especially true of the “strategic roadmap”, a mysterious document concocted by gregarious people after a session in front of a whiteboard at an off-site somewhere. Strategic…
Read MoreStrategy means facing challenges
Delivery of strategy always has its challenges. Lack of money, resources and support can affect success. My first job out of university was as a historic researcher for the New Zealand Forest Service (NZFS) then the Department of Conservation (DOC). My job was to research historic sites and to help develop a successful strategy for…
Read MoreEffective Strategy Implementation – People over structure
Strategic initiatives can be risky and many of them fail. Strategic plans get developed and even published, but still have no impact. In their 2008 book ‘The Execution Premium’, Norton and Kaplan note that 60-80% of companies fall far short of the expressed targets in their strategic plans. The Economist Intelligence Unit published ‘Why Good…
Read MoreStrategic Abandonment – The Art of Letting it Go
We reject new ideas more easily than we reject old ones. Some of the most common reasons for not investing in a strategic change initiative are: Those are good reasons for deciding not to invest. Organisations need to allocate resources wisely. If new projects take up 10% of resources, have you scrutinised the activities that…
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