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The way we use strategy is changing. In simple, stable environments the cirulation of an annual set of amorphous decks might have been enough. If an established company had a winning product or service, there was little risk of encountering major roadblocks. If any hurdles were detected, there was more time to formulate a response and react.
But in the digital economy the stakes have changed. Time is compressed, competition comes from everywhere and most industries are vulnerable to disruption. Subsequently, a well-formulated, well-communicated & widely adopted strategy has now becomes a crucial success factor.
Reflecting on my many years work within complex transformations in regulated environments, I believe that the most successful strategies are NOT those are the most accurate or insightful. They are approaches that:
The idea is that messaging is crystal clear & can be simple enough to be understood at each and every level. This leads to quicker decision making and feedback that provide opportunities to test the validity of the core stategy.
To achieve the firmness and clarity, there are a few critical components that must exist. I believe these should be reenforced and developed irrespective of the market or context. These are:
Furthermore, any valuable strategy needs to answer the “what next” question. A good execution structure is critical to translate and excute but and also critically provide the ground intelligence required for prioritisation, decision-making and ongoing adjustments. These 4 structural elements are:
While different sources and organisations use differing terminology & compositions, I believe that, at a minimum, these are the types of structures and components for any successful strategic yield.
Ensuring that each of these areas are well-addressed and communciation as early as possible may be the difference between huge success or catalysmic failure.
Customer loyalty takes years to build but only a minutes to destroy. For this reason, even a strong proposition, business model and team can experience significant setbacks when quality slips away during the scaling process. From experience, this risk is best addressed from 3 separate angles:
Since resources are finite, your Digital Strategy is a matter of choosing where and how to focus on certain capability areas at exclusion of others. This means that there will be an active choice to put less emphasis on other areas. The outcome of these decisions, choices and methods in your organisations Digital DNA.
A transformation will struggle to deliver sustainable & scalable value propositions if it has any number of capability blind spots. Each proposition requires a capability combinations that are employed in a consistent and scaleable fashion.
In hindsight, there are plenty of common pitfalls caused by a lack of digital capability balance. Here I detail a few more recent configurations & likely outcomes & alternatives to be careful to avoid making the same mistakes.
I recently shared a battle-tested, Objectives and Key Results (“OKR”) remote activity template on the Miroverse. Too often transformation failures stemming from a variety of inter-group misalignment. Although it seems like smooth sailing, deeper analysis often highlights unchecked assumptions and mismatches.
A straight-forward activity to identify and remediate these risks involves boiling down complex interactions to the bare minimum. The aim of the template is help empower a facilitator to conduct a remote, guided exercise that brings transparency & vision alignment to an upcoming or ongoing change initiative.
Any complex transformation is thwart with danger. Investing in this 1 day activity provides a stronger platform of group alliance. It provides critical learning, reflection and collaboration opportunities, helping shift the chances of success in your favour.
A blank canvas awaits: