Leading by Monitoring Your Environment

I heard the whining engine and screeching tires a split second before the white Miata flew around the curve. I jumped off my bike and watched as the petrified driver wrestled with the wheel and screamed past me. But the next mountain curve came too fast, and the sports car disappeared over the edge. I jumped back on my bike and rolled downhill 10 yards, to the spot where the tires last clawed the road. Praying for a miracle, I peered over the edge... and saw one. (Half-way up the mountain in this picture - Malibu, CA)

Instead of plunging 300 feet down the ravine (as seen in the picture), the car had landed upright, against several thick bushes 30 feet down. The driver was crawling up the embankment towards me.

As he reached the road, he straightened up and assured me he was fine (there were no visible bruises and he had been wearing his seatbelt). He asked to use my cell phone to call for a tow truck, and then encouraged me, several times, to continue my bike ride up the steep mountain road. I did. That's when I decided to count the curves on the mountain and started to think about those curves as a metaphor for how leaders need feedback to monitor their environment closely.

Webster’s Dictionary defines feedback as “the return to the point of origin of evaluative or corrective information.” Feedback is everywhere. A market-based economy works because consumers give continuous feedback to producers. The human body incorporates thousands of feedback mechanisms to keep us alive. Failure to pay attention to feedback is what almost killed the driver on that mountain. Is it hurting your leadership?

I counted 37 curves from the spot where he went over the edge to the top of that mountain. This means he had 37 opportunities to become aware of, learn from, and adjust to the feedback from his environment as he raced down. He obtained feedback about the road conditions, his car, his ability to negotiate hairpin curves... You get the point. He was, to paraphrase T.S. Eliot, getting the experience but missing the meaning. How often does that happen to you?

Are you having experiences, but missing the meaning? Here's a clue... I know I'm NOT learning my lesson when the universe keeps sending me (i.e., I keep creating) the same experience over and over again. It's always Groundhog Day for those who don't learn from their experience. Monitoring your environment by being open to internal and external feedback, and choosing to learn from it, is what makes an experience meaningful.

As a leader, you receive feedback from customers, team members, management... every day. Here are three powerful tools to help you use feedback to monitor your surroundings.

1. Be open to most things, attached to few

If the person on the mountain had been open to what the hairpin turns were teaching him, he might not have plunged off the road. Do you ever find yourself going so fast, trying to push too hard or rush a conversation, that you miss critical feedback? Don’t become so attached to your way, as I sometimes do, that you miss the "corrective information" someone or something is telling you.

2. Write for insight

In her book ‘The Artist’s Way,’ Julia Cameron describes a powerful technique called Morning Pages. She says that if you really want to discover the meaning of something, write three pages by hand, non-stop, and fast, in the morning. Anything that comes to mind, write it down, without editing. Don’t think, don’t hesitate, and don’t stop. The key is to keep your hand moving no matter what spills out onto the pages. Morning Pages are NOT prose, poetry, or journaling. You shouldn't show them to or share them with anyone. You will be amazed at what this "internal feedback" teaches you. Remember, we don’t learn from experience; we learn from our reflection on that experience.

3. Ask positive questions

Do you ever get down on yourself or blame circumstances when you make a mistake or life throws you a curve (like a hairpin one on a mountain)? We all mess up. Yet few of us realize that there is no failure, only feedback. ‘Failure’ is just feedback waiting for meaning. It’s only failure if you don’t learn anything. Whenever you're hit by unexpected or unwelcome events, what if you focused on positive feedback by asking questions like:

• - What could I learn from this?
• - Will this be critical five years from today?
• - How can I view this differently?

We all receive tons of feedback as we speed through our day. Perhaps if we paid closer attention to this "corrective information" we might make more meaning out of what happens to us. Maybe feedback is about learning for the future. Perhaps feedback is really feed-forward?

See you on the mountain,

Dave

How Leaders Use Value to Maintain Motivation

Do you ever feel like a statue at a pigeon convention? Although I teach leaders how to motivate others, occasionally I'm not very fired up myself, especially when I get hit by one of life's unexpected waves.

How about you? How do you feel when you're smacked by a setback at work or home? How do you respond (or do you react?) when people are difficult, equipment breaks down, your schedule seems out of control, or those pigeons are threatening to hold a convention over your head?

To help deal with those difficult days, you might find it helpful to reflect on three principles I learned from Nick. Nick was a friend and coworker at Siemens, several years ago, who crashed his hang-glider into a mountainside. (His entire story is told in my book, 'Selling with Science & Soul') Despite breaking bones in his back, arms, legs, and feet, Nick smashed every sales record in an entire industry THAT SAME YEAR. Nick's remarkable comeback can help you lead your team back from any setback if you focus on three 'VALUEable' motivational principles.

Principle #1 - Recognize Value

Does what you do make a difference to anyone? I bet the answer is yes. You and your team make a difference to customers, their families, your coworkers; not to mention the daily influence you have on your family, friends, and neighbors. How often and how well do you remind your team about the value they bring to others?

Nick rebounded faster from his disaster because he believed and affirmed that he made a valuable contribution to people at work and home. He reminded himself on a daily basis that the equipment he sold truly helped his customers and their patients. Remember the movie classic, ‘It's a Wonderful Life?’ One of its timeless lessons of this classic is that each of us has a subtle and substantial impact on others.

If you want to bounce back quickly from those pesky problems that sting you throughout the day, reaffirm the value you bring to people every day. For example, a leader from my class recently e-mailed me that she now starts her staff meetings by asking her supervisors to report on how they helped others during the week. How could you adapt this idea to fit your team at work and at home?

Principle #2 - Appreciate Value

While the first lesson reminds us to focus on the value we bring to others, the second asks us to reward this value. It's great to find value in what you and others do, it's also important to celebrate what you find. What you appreciate, appreciates. Nick told me that one of the other reasons he recovered quickly was because his family, friends, and customers applauded the small steps he took getting back to work. In a small way, I contributed by sending him cards reminding him that his customers appreciated the business calls he was making from his living room couch. How can you celebrate the value your team members bring to their "customers," and each other, every day?

Principle #3 - Value the Present

Nick says his brush with death gave him a new perspective on life. To live life fully, he realized he needed to value each moment completely. The same is true for you and your team. When you focus on whatever you are doing, you are honoring the very gift of life - which is the present. Valuing the present is as old as Zen (Be here now!) and religion (THIS is the day the Lord has made!).

When I was visiting Nick at his home during his recovery, I told him about how much I disliked completing my expense reports. He reminded me that Zig Ziglar states, "Every day above ground is a great one." We both laughed, and then talked about the importance making the most out of every moment. Nick taught me that one way of valuing the present was to turn frustration into fascination. Rather than being frustrated doing my expenses, I started to get fascinated by the rich, sensory detail of the activity. I focused on all the sights (all those numbers, colors, different surfaces...), sounds (computers keys, papers shuffling, birds in the background...), and feelings (surface of the keyboard, the variety of receipts...) of the experience. It is wonderful life when you focus and value the wonderful minutes that compose life. (There is no time except the present.) How might you apply this principle to help you handle the challenging aspects of your life at work and home?

Next time a customer is rude, the equipment breaks down, the schedule seems out of control, or those pigeons are circling overhead, remember Nick's 'VALUEable' lessons. Recognize the value in all you do. Celebrate it every day. And do it now. That's the motivating value of value! Let me know how you use value to stay motivated. (Check out other ways leaders get their people fired up at http://www.bnet.com/2422-13724_23-181094.html )

Keep stretching,

Dave

Leaders with Passion

The word 'passion' comes from the Latin word 'passio,' meaning "suffering." If you watched Mel Gibson's intense movie "The Passion of the Christ," you probably have a whole new appreciation for this word. Whether you've seen it or not, you may want to consider two personal, yet subtle leadership questions the movie raises: What are you passionate about? How much are you willing to "suffer" to get it?

The Price of Passion
Every goal we strive for has a price. It may cost time, money, emotional energy, or lost opportunities. There's always something we must give up in order to get. And at times, this cost is painful. The more difficult and worthy the goal, the higher the price and often, the greater the suffering. (Think about Abraham Lincoln, Mahatma Gandhi, Susan B. Anthony, Martin Luther King, Nelson Mandela, and of course, Christ.) So, when you discuss goals at work or the dinner table, how much of the conversation concerns what you're willing to give up to reach your goal (e.g., not make progress on this project, delay addressing that issue, miss a few of your kid’s games)? Do you ever talk about what sacrifices may be needed (i.e., opportunity costs) or how you will persevere when adversity strikes? If you and your team want to keep going, especially through those tough times, you need to be passionate about your goals.

The Passionate Soul in Your Goal
A compelling goal inspires action in a given direction. Christ endured the agony of the crucifixion because of the ecstasy of his goal. The goal was his North Star. It’s where he looked during tough times. Where do you and your team look when you suffer a setback? Employees seldom seek guidance in the company mission statement because it's often manufactured in some executive suite - miles from the heart and soul of the rank and file. When I helped an organization write inspiring vision statements last month, I reminded them that if there's no soul in their mission, there'll be no passion in their action. And without passion, it's hard to overcome the painful problems that worthy goals encounter.

Plato, the grandfather of metaphysics and the godfather of soul (sorry James Brown), taught that the soul was the changeless essence of being. The soul is your unique (i.e., YOUnique) spiritual essence. Great organizations, teams, and individuals peer into their soul before setting out to achieve their goals. Perhaps this is why Kevin Rollins, president of Dell Computer ($60 billion in revenue), launched an initiative called "The Soul of Dell." They now do soul searching as part of their ongoing business practices. How might you adapt this idea?

Stars Are Seen at Night
Contrast is how we see. You can employ the power of contrast to help you re-discover the passion in your goals by spending time far from the maddening crowd. Go for walks, write in a journal, pray, or meditate every day (which is what the highly respected and former CEO of Medtronic, William George, has done for thirty-five years). How surprised will you be when these frequent respites help you see your light, renew your soul, and refresh the passion needed to carry your cross?

Keep eXpanding,
Dave

Leading by Staying in Touch

The president of our association was about to make a mistake. So, as a member of her board of directors, I responded to her e-mail by sharing my concern and suggesting that she solicit opinions from other board members. An hour later I shook my head as I read her e-mail "asking" for input. I place the word asking in quotations because the president didn't really ask for opinions, she sold her's. Then I thought, how often do I do that? How often do I ask people for their ideas, but consciously or subconsciously actually communicate/sell my strong preference? How often do you do that?

Do you see the subtle danger here? If people perceive that we are not approachable (i.e., not open to new, creative, contradictory, or opposing views), they will stop approaching. When people stop approaching we lose touch with our environment. And that's very dangerous for any leader.

Two-time Pulitzer prize-winning historian and author David McCullough was recently asked by the Harvard Business Review how to become a better leader. His answer? Become a better listener and hear what it is not being said. The importance of listening and approachability was also demonstrated by Professors Amable and Kramer, who analyzed 12,000 reports from 238 employees, all whom kept careful diaries of their work days for four months. These researchers found that employees were more creative and productive when their leaders were open to new ideas, cooperative, and collaborative. In other words, leaders who listen well and are approachable not only stay in touch, but their employees perform better.

The lesson from great leaders is clear: if you want to be in touch with your environment be open to those who disagree with you. George Washington had Jefferson and Hamilton, Abraham Lincoln had his cabinet filled his with those who ran against him in 1860, and after the Bay of Pigs fiasco President Kennedy made sure he had those with opposing views at his table. Who do you have?
Leaders who refuse to listen to differing views are not strong enough to doubt. Their weak faith leaves them feeling vulnerable around those who disagree with them. Their black and white thinking has not matured to embrace shades of gray. They don’t understand that being open to ideas is not the same as agreement with those ideas.

I invite you to take off the mental blinder that states “your reality is the reality.” I encourage you to solicit opposing views, applaud those with unique perspectives, and speak last during most discussions. These three techniques can help you monitor your environment. What other methods do you use to stay in touch?

Keep on eXpanding,

Dave

Twelve Tips for Trustworthy Leadership

"I'll get back to you on that." I uttered these famous last words to a graduate student at UCLA many years ago when I was selling for Siemens Medical Systems. I never did get back to him. I don't remember why? Maybe became busy and forgot about his request. Not a big deal, right? It wasn’t as if HE was buying the equipment from us or influential in the buying process. Yeah right.

Two years later, when I was Chief Administrative Officer of the Institute for Molecular Imaging at UCLA, my failure to follow through came back to bite me. This graduate student became a professor in our Institute and told my boss, the director of the Institute, that he preferred not to work with me on any projects because he didn't trust me. Ouch! A leader without trust is like a captain with a crew of storefront mannequins - all show, no go. How much do your team members trust you? Do you know the secrets of managing trust?

Researchers at Harvard University recently revisited these questions. A summary of their trust survey of nearly 1,300 stakeholders (i.e., employees, customers, investors, and suppliers) is seen below (1):

1. Increasing transparency does not always increase trust. Transparency can actually diminish trust if what is disclosed is inappropriate. For example, disclosing high executive salary to front-line supervisors may hurt trust, especially if there is no perceived link between pay and performance.

3. Different competencies matter. Employees trust leaders who have managerial competence, meaning they know how to lead and manage employees and the organization. Interestingly, customers and suppliers also increase their trust when they perceive competency. However, their concern is more related to technical, not managerial proficiency.

2. Integrity builds trust. This is true, IF the leader’s integrity is accompanied by caring.

4. The value congruence is important for all stakeholders. Employees, customers, suppliers, and investors all increase trust when they see espoused values in action.

Here are eight other practical tips to increase trust with your teams:

a. Keep personal information confidential.

b. Ask people if they want information to be confidential at the beginning of conversations.

c. Don't oversell. Enthusiasm to please other people or to make a sale may cause you to over-commit… like I did in the opening story.

d. Admit mistakes early when you make them.

e. Share appropriate information ASAP with your team.

f. Don't gossip.

g. Create trust norms with your team.

h. Make sure your ambition doesn't get out of hand. Count the number of times you say ‘I and me’ versus ‘us and we.’

Oh yes, a bonus practical tip to increase trust: next time you utter those famous words, "I'll get back to you," make sure you do. What behaviors you exhibit that increases trust?

Keep eXpanding,

Dave

1. Michael Pirson and Deepak Malhotra, The Secrets of Trust, ‘MIT Sloan Management Review,’ Summer 2008, volume 49, number 4, page 43 -- 50.

Six Hollywood Secrets to Help Leaders Inspire Innovation

The best way to go through these challenging times is to grow through them. And fundamental to the recipe of organic growth is the ingredient of innovation. So, how well do you inspire innovation?

Perhaps we can learn a few lessons from Hollywood's most successful studio, Pixar. (1) They are the creators of extraordinary films such as ‘A Bug's Life, Toy Story, Toy Story 2, Monsters Inc., Finding Nemo, The Incredibles, Cars, Ratatouille, and WALL-E.’ All of these films have been blockbusters. Unlike most other studios, Pixar never buys scripts or movie ideas from the outside. Their community of artists create every story and character. Here are the principles that guide them:

1. Promote creativity in everyone every day. A movie contains tens of thousands of ideas. What the characters say; how they perform each line; the design of the characters, sets and backgrounds; the colors and lighting... Every member of the 250-person production crew needs to make creative suggestions. Creativity is encouraged and celebrated at every level of the organization every day. It is not a single initiative to capture great ideas in a moment of time; it's the way they do things all the time. Is it the way you do things all the time?

2. Hire great teams to make great movies. “If you give a good idea to a mediocre team, they will screw it up; if you give a mediocre idea to a great team, they will either fix it or throw it away and come up with something that works.” (1) So says Ed Catmull, cofounder of Pixar and the president of Pixar and Disney Animation Studios. How do you attract and retain top talent?

3. Gain breakthrough ideas from people, not committees. Pixar executives believe great movies begin with the individuals who come up with a movie idea. They give enormous leeway to these individuals, and then provide them with an environment in which they get honest and direct feedback from everyone. While the development department in most studios is charged with coming up with new ideas for movies, this is not true at Pixar. Pixar executives believe the department's job is to assemble a small incubation team to help individuals refine their own ideas to a point where they can convince senior executives that these ideas have the potential to make great films. In most organizations however, only the R&D team comes up with great product or service ideas. How could you tap into the creativity of your entire team?

4. Obtain peer review that is honest and true. Pixar has a brain trust that consists of the cofounders of Pixar and eight directors. When a director feels that they need assistance, they ask the brain trust (and anyone else they think might help) to view their work in progress. The session is a two-hour, lively, give-and-take discussion focused on making the movie better. There's no ego, and nobody pulls-any-punches to be polite. It produces results because everyone trusts and respects each other. After the session, the director of the movie decides which ideas to accept or reject. The brain trust has no authority to mandate any changes. How do you solicit feedback that is honest and true?

5. Communicate with anyone anytime. Members of any department are free to approach anyone in any other department to solve problems without having to go through any "proper" channels. As an outside consultant, I'm constantly amazed at how happy executives are when they apply my Systems Thinking Action Team (S.T.A.T.) model to demolish their internal silos and wipe out turf wars. How are you tearing down those walls?

6. Create a unifying vision. A movie needs a coherence that brings together the thousands of ideas that go into a movie. This unifying vision is turned into clear directives that the staff can implement. Yet, most vision statements are boring placards on the wall. The essence of a great unifying vision is that it stimulates action in a given direction. I recently helped a department within the county of San Diego create a vision statement (in less than one-hour) as part of their daylong, executive retreat. Their associate director recently told me that they have already printed it on their stationery because it gives them direction and stimulates action. Does yours?

These are the keys to growing through change. How could you adapt the principles from the most successful Hollywood studio to help you stimulate innovation as you grow through these challenging times?

See you at the movies,

Dave

1. Ed Catmull; How Pixar Fosters Collective Creativity, ‘Harvard Business Review,’ September 2008, 65 - 72.

How Leaders Create Strategic Plans in Uncertain Times

Debbie is the Chief Financial Officer of a midsize technology firm in California. Recently, several of the division managers in her organization complained about the new financial reporting system put in place by Debbie’s team. Debbie met with these managers and explained the rationale behind the new system. She told them that it was going to allow them to better monitor the performance of their team and efficiently execute their strategy. She said their jobs would be easier because they would be able to hold their people accountable for results and obtain relevant financial reports. At the end of the meeting, the managers thanked her for her time, shuffled into the corridor, and continued to complain about the “inflexible, bureaucratic system that was not going to meet their changing needs.”

Debbie developed many skills on her path to CFO position. She was detail-oriented, organized, and clear about expectations to name a few. However, the CEO knew that the resistance that she experienced with the new system was a sign that she needed to grow her visionary leadership style. He “invited” her to attend one of our leadership courses that the CEO had attended. His hope was that she would develop what research reveals is one of the key skills of a visionary leader – the ability to adapt strategies to meet goals during uncertain times.

Visionary leaders communicate a compelling vision by optimistically discussing the future because they have thought strategically about the big picture. They spend time creating, refining, and adapting flexible plans to create the desired future. One of Debbie's problems was that most of her plans were cast in concrete. While she was competent in some aspects of the planning process, her ability to adapt the strategy based on her colleague’s feedback was lacking. She would have avoided this problem had she followed the seven simple steps of strategic planning outlined in this article.

The Seven Simple Steps of Effective Strategic Planning

1. Define the Business.

2. Develop a Situational Analysis.

3. Identify Assumptions.

4. Specify Key Objectives.

5. Create Strategic Alternatives.

6. Commit to an Action Plan.

7. Implement and Adapt the Plan.

Strategic planning combines rational thinking skills with the flexible, creative thinking required to be a visionary thinker. Planning is an organized process for anticipating and dealing with the future. To be strategically competent in the planning process requires the leader to acquire, interpret, and rapidly act upon changing information relevant to the health of the organization. While Debbie was competent in planning, her strategic competence was lacking. We will now briefly define each stage of the strategic planning process so you can see how to integrate strategic planning and strategic thinking to meet your challenges in tough times.

1. Define the Business.

The primary task in the first step is to define your mission, products, and markets. It is often helpful to look back a few years and describe where you’ve been. Then, use a crystal ball to peer into the future and determine what your unit’s markets should be. Your strategic plan is your vehicle for driving your organization to the future. Debbie may have lost sight of the fact that part of her mission was to listen to her internal customers. Here are a few questions to help you define your business:

- What business are we in?

- What is the level of profitability in our industry and why?

- Why are we in this business?

- What needs or wants do we satisfy?

2. Develop of a Situational Analysis.

After defining the business, determine the current condition of your unit. This is best accomplished by identifying the internal and external factors influencing your unit. The internal factors include areas within your company, such as: marketing, manufacturing, materials, labor, technology, finance, quality, equipment, service, distribution, and service. The external forces often include customers, the economy, regulatory climate, and competition.

Professor Michael Porter, from the Harvard Business School, points out that a primary job of the strategist is to understand and cope with the competition. (1) Yet, leaders often define the competition too narrowly. Professor Porter reminds us that competition extends beyond traditional industry rivals and should include four other competitive forces: buyers, suppliers, new entrants, and substitute products. It was this type of strategic thinking that allowed Pepsi to enter the bottled water industry, Microsoft to offer Internet browsers, and Apple to enter the music distribution business.

Brainstorm the answers to the following questions with your team:

- What are our company’s internal strengths and weaknesses?

- How strong or weak are we in the various functional areas?

- What are the opportunities and threats facing our organization?

- What is happening with the economy, government regulations...?

- What is changing regarding our customers, suppliers, competitors, possible substitutes, potential new entrants?

- What have been our blind spots in the past?

- What is happening in these areas now?

- What are our mavericks and the lunatic fringe trying to tell us?

- What signals might we be missing from the periphery or margins?

Anheuser-Busch listened to the periphery and capitalized on the low-carb trend that emerged several years ago. (2) They were pioneers in this segment when they launched their low-carb Michelob Ultra in September 2002 and captured 5.7% of the light beer market in a short period. Coors on the other hand, didn't enter the market until 18 months later. But despite $30 million investment in the launch, the Coors low-carb competitor captured a meager 0.4% of the market.

What gave Anheuser-Busch the insight to see what Coors did not? Anheuser-Busch had been studying “healthier” beer options for decades, including adding vitamins to beer (Beer drinkers are thankful that idea never came to market). Thus, when the low-carb craze captured the attention of millions, Anheuser-Busch’s situational analysis prepared them to take immediate action. Asking and answering many of these strategic questions had prepared them to adapt. Training for agility leads to rapid adaptability.

3. Identify Assumptions.

This step of the strategic planning process evaluates assumptions and risks that may occur in the near term. Again, involving team members will not only contribute new perspectives, but increase buy-in to the outcome of the process. Share the first two phases of your strategic plan with the team members. Then, ask them to brainstorm individually, on blank sheet of paper, the answer to this incomplete sentence: I assume...

After you process their assumptions, invite them to identify assumptions in specific areas, such as the economy, inflation, consumer demand, manufacturing capacity, labor conditions, availability of material, transportation issues, changing demographics, your five competitors (i.e., traditional rivals, buyers, suppliers, new entrants, and substitute products) and so forth. The goal is to identify the critical factors that might affect your operation positively or negatively. Then, create a probability/impact risk matrix and differentiate those assumptions that you can control from those you cannot.

Perhaps Mattel would not have lost 20% of its share of the worldwide fashion-dolls segment to smaller rival MGA entertainment between 2001 and 2004 had they used this process. MGA recognized that preteen girls were becoming much more sophisticated and maturing more rapidly. They were outgrowing Barbie and increasingly preferring dolls that look like their teenage siblings and television/music pop stars. The target market for Barbie narrowed from age’s three to eleven to three to five almost overnight. Of course Mattel responded, but not until a fifth of Barbie's realm had been lost.

4. Specify Key Objectives.

The first three steps of the strategic planning process lead to this, the heart of the plan -- your key objectives. I recommend that you write three or four financial objectives and three or four nonfinancial objectives. These objectives should be written in a S.M.A.R.T. (Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Responsible, and Timed.) manner. The time frame depends on how quickly things change in your industry. The rule of thumb has been a five-year period. However, if you are an industry where the rate of change is accelerating, you might consider a three-year time horizon.

5. Create Strategic Alternatives.

Step five asks you to write three scenarios that depict the future of the company. These include the most probable one, an optimistic one, and a pessimistic one. Each scenario should summarize a basic strategy for the company, including new product introductions, facility startups, shutdowns, equipment purchases, acquisitions, changes in supplier relationships and so forth.

The most probable scenario is the one that will deliver the company to its desired future if successfully implemented. The second scenario outlines an optimistic view of what the future may bring. (Excellent companies, such as Apple, often fail in this phase leading to shipping delays.) The third scenario is the pessimistic one. It identifies the various options that would allow you to maintain profitability if your projections are off. This ensures that you have thought through the moves that you would need to take.

An important part of your strategic alternatives involves your competition. You may have discussed the competition in a situational analysis, but detailed responses must be presented in this section. Answering questions such as the following should help:

- What are our competitors’ strengths and weaknesses?

- What is the financial condition of each of our major competitors?

- What might be our competitors’ strategies?

- How will our competitors respond to our market success?

6. Commit to an Action Plan.

Your action plan is a detailed scenario describing everything learned about your company, your unit, the environment, the competition, and the future. Of course, it's is based on your most probable scenario. Responsibilities and time frames must also be clearly defined. Contingency plans should also be developed for the pessimistic and optimistic scenarios.

7. Implement and Adapt the Plan.

The plan is useless unless it degenerates into action. It is therefore necessary to set up quarterly meetings to follow-up and adapt as the environment changes. The biggest problem most leaders make is putting the strategic plan on the shelf. Strategic planning is an ongoing process for creating a desired future. We may not be able to predict the future, but you can anticipate and occasionally create it.

These ideas helped Debbie adapt her plans to meet the needs of her internal customer during uncertain times. How can you adapt them to meet your challenges?

Keep on eXpanding,

Dave

1. Michael E. Porter: The Five Competitive Forces That Shape Strategy, ‘Harvard Business Review’, January 2008, 79 - 93.

2. George S. Day and Paul J. H. Shumaker: Scanning the Periphery, ‘Harvard Business Review’, November 2005, 135 - 148.