{"id":1029,"date":"2020-02-05T18:28:09","date_gmt":"2020-02-05T18:28:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/janbosch.com\/blog\/?p=1029"},"modified":"2020-02-05T18:28:15","modified_gmt":"2020-02-05T18:28:15","slug":"why-your-strategy-fails","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/janbosch.com\/blog\/index.php\/2020\/02\/05\/why-your-strategy-fails\/","title":{"rendered":"Why your strategy fails"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Photo by chuttersnap on Unsplash\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

During the last weeks, I\u2019ve experienced multiple situations where an organization (industrial or academic) simply doesn\u2019t have a business strategy or a strategy concerning a key area for their business. When probed and questioned on the strategy, I\u2019ve observed at least three types of responses.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

First, leaders in the company say that there is<\/em> a strategy \nand that I\u2019m wrong in claiming otherwise. Although I\u2019ve been wrong many \ntimes in my life, to me a strategy should provide clear guidance on what\n tasks and opportunities should be prioritized over others and, above \nall, what we shouldn\u2019t spend time, energy and resources on. A strategy \nthat fails to specify what we shouldn\u2019t do, to paraphrase Michael \nPorter, is no strategy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Second, the company admits that the strategy is high-level and not \noperational but defends itself by claiming that its key success in the \nmarket is to be customer focused and, consequently, it needs to respond \nto the requests from customers rather than set its own course. \nObviously, this is a fallacy as it causes companies to fall into the \n\u201cmake customers happy\u201d trap. It\u2019s impossible to satisfy everyone. \nRather, you need to choose what kind of customers you want and then \nfocus on making them happy. This, of course, is a strategic choice.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Third, especially in new areas where the company has no established \nbusiness, leaders claim that it\u2019s impossible to formulate a strategy as \nnobody knows how the market will unfold. This, however, causes them to \nbecome the plaything of more proactive, strategic competitors who will \ndictate how the market will establish itself. It\u2019s important to avoid an\n Alice in Wonderland situation where by not knowing what you want, any \ndirection is equally good.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Although these responses are understandable and human, they lead to a\n number of serious problems for the company. There are at least three \nthat I\u2019ve witnessed over the years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

First, the company acts tactically and opportunistically. Due to the \nlack of a clear strategy, individuals at all levels in the organization \ntake tactical decisions that provide them with the most benefit in the \nshort term without considering the long-term consequences. This results \nin an accumulation of architectural, technical and process debt in the \norganization, as well as in the relationships with customers and other \necosystem participants, which over time causes enormous disadvantages \ndue to reduced business agility, unreasonable expectations by others, as\n well as numerous other consequences.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Second, there\u2019s a significant risk that different teams in the \ncompany pursue opposing local strategies and consequently nullify each \nother\u2019s efforts, causing the company to spend, sometimes significant, \nresources without any business benefit. Burning resources without \ngenerating business benefits obviously is the fastest road to \nbankruptcy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Third, even if none of the above effects occur at your organization, \nall employees will, at any point in time, still have way more work than \nthey could possibly hope to accomplish during work hours. In the absence\n of a clear strategy, individuals randomly prioritize tasks based on \npersonal preferences, expediency and other factors. So, the \u201cstrategy in\n use\u201d will become whatever everyone feels like. In practice, this tends \nto lead to people doing what they did yesterday, meaning the company \ngets stuck in the past and fails to evolve and respond to changes in the\n market.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Concluding, developing and communicating a clear and actionable strategy that represents tangible choices is a critical tool in aligning large groups of people. The alternative is to micromanage everyone, which will cause you to lose your best people as nobody likes being told how to do their job. A successful strategy defines a clear what and why and leaves it to individuals and teams to figure out how.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

To get more insights earlier, sign up for my newsletter at <\/em>jan@janbosch.com<\/em><\/a> or follow me on<\/em> janbosch.com\/blog<\/em><\/a>, LinkedIn (<\/em>linkedin.com\/in\/janbosch<\/em><\/a>) or Twitter (<\/em>@JanBosch<\/em><\/a>).<\/em> \n\t\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\tCategories <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

During the last weeks, I\u2019ve experienced multiple situations where an organization (industrial or academic) simply doesn\u2019t have a business strategy or a strategy concerning a key area for their business. When probed and questioned on the strategy, I\u2019ve observed at least three types of responses. First, leaders in the company say that there is a … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"generate_page_header":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[8,10],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/janbosch.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1029"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/janbosch.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/janbosch.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/janbosch.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/janbosch.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1029"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/janbosch.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1029\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1031,"href":"https:\/\/janbosch.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1029\/revisions\/1031"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/janbosch.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1029"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/janbosch.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1029"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/janbosch.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1029"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}