Your situation
Where you are
If you watched the first video in our phase one of our guide you saw Roger Martin, presented by Harvard Business Review, describing the difference between planning and strategy, and of course highlighting the flawed concept of strategic planning
You likely recall Roger pointing out that Planning is activity and resource consumption based, and that it can be a fatal comfort trap for business managers and leaders.
He then pointed out that strategy is a theory based upon a distinct set of choices to achieve an externally focused outcome, for example, how a business will succeed with its target customers. Strategy makes a set of choices for how a business will win and outperform rivals in serving customers better than anyone else in a particular playing field. He pointed out that strategy is less in your control and that coherence among and between the strategic choices is an important prerequisite. He concluded by pointing out that planning alone and that confusing strategy with planning is a path to losing.
Where you are headed
Now, either through the StrategyCAD website or other sources, you have become aware that Strategy is not planning, but about making specific strategic choices to engineer valuable business outcomes in the external business environment.
Now
You are likely more than a little keen to replace any of your flawed strategic planning activities or intents and elevate the performance of your business by launching or relaunching your strategy practice with strategic choice making.
Need to fill some knowledge gaps?
Before you do that you need a path to success. You likely need to know more about what strategic choices you need to make? The details of those choices and whether there are supportive methodology and tools, to create that blueprint for success that Roger Martin spoke about in that Harvard Business Review video.
How will you get there
In this session we're going to start you on your journey. You will be introduced to some strategic choice models and can take some definitive advice on how you can progress and complete your strategic choice making journey.
First
Introduce you to some well established choice models
Secondly
Resources on the StrategyCAD website you can use to complete your journey in a structured and complete manner.
Recognized strategic choice models
Lafely and Martin Five choice model
Described in their book - Playing to Win: How Strategy really works
1. Winning aspiration
Aspirations are the guiding purpose of your business. Lafely and Martin compel leaders to establish a winning aspiration to avoid settling for mediocrity.
2. Where do we play / compete
Which geographic regions, relative price, customer needs, stage of production, product and service types.
3. How do we succeed
Type of strategy to be applied - Differentiation or cost leadership
4. Capabilities and resource
What capabilities (business know-how) will the business need to succeed in the chosen playing field. What resources tangible and intangible resources will those capabilities need?
4. Systems
Policies, procedures and systems to implement, evaluate, govern and sustain the straegy.
Four choice model
Described by Prof Jeff Dyer, Prof Robert J. Jensen, Assoc Prof Paul C. Godfrey and Assoc Prof David j. Bryce in their book Strategic management: Concepts and cases
Where do we play / compete
Which geographic regions, relative price, customer needs, stage of production, product and service types.
What unique value do we provide
What is the value proposition of the business that means customers will buy from this business rather than another.
3. Capabilities and resource
What capabilities (business know-how) will the business need to succeed in the chosen playing field. What resources tangible and intangible resources will those capabilities need?
4. Sustain
Policies, procedures and systems to implement, evaluate, govern and sustain the strategy and the unique value proposition.
StrategyCAD Unified Choices model
The StrategyCAD choice model integrates the choices from the five and four choice models. Additionally, the StrategyCAD choices model integrates the choices you need to make to transition from strategy choice making or formulation into strategy execution.
Execution transition
Those questions or choices to close the chasm between choice making and
implementation are
1. Where are you today with respect to the choices that you've made with respect to your customers? With respect to your competitors, your internal capabilities, resources, et cetera
2. Where do you need to be in a foreseeable future?
So this can be one year,
two years or three, but now your team define where your business need
to be with respect to closing gaps between where it is today and where it needs or wants to be with respect to the choices that you have made in the preceding steps and then
3.How will your business get there?
What is your coherent action plan? And what is the guiding or enabling policy that will enable your business to apply the action plan?
A guiding policy identifies:
1. What will your business needs to start doing that it's not doing today?
2. What does it need to do more of.
3. What it needs to keep doing?
4. What it needs to start doing less of or stop doing
to achieve the outcomes that you have made in your strategic choices.
Continuing your journey
Visit the StrategyCAD methodology and tools guide
