Great minds think about the same topics at the same time.
Or maybe another way to put it is that strategy guys start thinking about business strategy questions at the same time because it's time to start thinking about strategic planning!
On Sunday afternoon, customer experience strategy and innovation expert Woody Bendle emailed this new blog article on business strategy questions. I saw the email, but didn't take a look at the article. Later Sunday night when I decided to write a blog post for Monday, I did a Twitter search on #strategic to find creative inspiration. The result was a blog post on...you guessed it...business strategy questions! While there is a little bit of overlap with Woody's article, his questions are focused on generating the strategy while the ones from the previous column were more for reviewing strategy after it's been completed.
So with that setup, here's Woody!
7 Business Strategy Questions from Woody Bendle
As we enter into the back half of the year, it seems this is typically when many organizations begin their strategic planning and goal setting for the coming year.
Strategy and strategic planning needn’t be mysterious nor overly complicated although many organizations do in fact overcomplicate strategic planning. The problem with this is complicated strategic planning processes tend to lead to needlessly complex strategies. And the more complex your strategy, the less likely it is to be executed successfully.
After being involved with and/or leading strategy development for more than 20 years, I’ve found that organizations can develop a highly effective strategy by asking and answering just seven key questions.
- What are we trying to accomplish?
- Why are we trying to do this?
- What are our core values or what things do we believe in?
- What are the things we need to do in order to accomplish what we’re wanting to accomplish?
- How will we know if we are making progress towards our stated goals and objectives?
- What things (both internal and external) could get in the way of us achieving our goals and objectives?
- What things are we willing and or prepared to do if we are not achieving our stated goals or objectives at the rate desired?
Granted, these are pretty meaty questions; but you have to admit, they are pretty straight forward.
One thing I’ve definitely observed over the past 20 years is that the more straight forward your approach to strategy, the more straight forward your strategy will be; and the more likely it is that your strategy will be successfully executed.
And after all, the point of a strategy and a strategic plan is to define what success looks like for your organization and determine what all needs to be done in order for your organization to be successful.
I think Yogi Berra sums up this sentiment nicely, “If you don’t know where you are going, you might wind up someplace else.” - Woody Bendle
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