the strategy secret

OK, here it comes … there isn’t one. 

The killer strategy is always hiding in plain sight. 

There are many methods for discovering it, uncovering it or seeing it clearly for the first time, none of which are proprietary or mystical or revolutionary.

And they’re all variations on a theme:

Gathering together a small group of decision-makers to have open, honest, thoughtful and challenging conversations.

Through these conversations, the winning strategy emerges and takes shape.

How this happens will be unique to each group and each situation.

The tools, processes and frameworks are already established [see my Strategy Tools & Frameworks summary].

The skill is in putting them together in the right way for the particular group and the specific strategic challenge.

The hero needs a guide …

Whether it’s me or somebody else, involving the right person from beyond the day-to-day of your business will help you move further, faster and with much greater impact than if you try and do it all yourself.

My role isn’t to do your strategy for you. It’s to guide you and your team on a creative and challenging journey to deliver a clear, coherent and compelling strategy for your organization. One everybody can understand and buy into.

What the right strategy guide will bring:

Perspective - a view from the outside that’s free from the common assumptions of the group.

Independence - operating beyond the hierarchy and power dynamics of the team.

Creativity - a little bit of magic dust to energize and inspire the group.

Challenge - if a strategy isn’t painful, it isn’t good enough. Strategy inevitably demands tough choices. You need to be forced to make them.

Expertise - not sector- or category-specific (just enough of this is what’s needed, too much can prove limiting), but rather knowing when to step in or step back, the right prompts and nudges to move things along, when to doggedly pursue an answer and when to leave time and space for reflection … call it facilitation if you like, I prefer the idea of a strategy guide.  

A good guide knows where you want to get to; they might even know the quickest route; but they also know the journey is yours, not theirs, and the experience of the journey is the point.

You will need to go forward and lead your team and the business along the strategic path you have chosen. 

The experience of journeying along the path is therefore essential. It means you can explain the tough choices, you can empathize with the uncertainty and resistence people might be feeling, you can stay committed even when - especially when - things get tough.

“Pathmaker there is no path, we make the path by walking” - Antonio Machado