Unmasking strategy

Hunt for Greatness
Milton Kamwendo

Strategy is about confronting reality and doing what matters for the organisation to move forward despite the obstacles that stand in the way.

Hiding behind Powerpoint presentations, completing forms, ticking boxes or making lengthy presentations is not a substitute for the real thinking that is needed to develop strategy. Some people assert that their plans are excellent, the problem is execution. Execution is part of the strategy and not a separate element from the strategy.

Larry Bossidy and Ram Charan in their 2004 book, entitled “Confronting Reality: Master the New Model for Success” share some sobering questions that organisation leaders have to confront as they develop their strategies. The questions are:

• Is the how of making money in my business and industry changing?
• How, specifically, are the winners making money?
• If my business is a winner, what do I need to do to stay on top?
• Conversely, if I need to change my game, what, specifically, should I be doing?
• Am I in a growth industry or not? If not, and I want to continue playing in the game, how do I change it or play it better than the competition?
• Is my organisation moving quickly to spot and take advantage of growth opportunities generated by these changes?

Strategy is the ground of life or death in any organisation. Change that is not seen or understood could lead to painful consequences.

This is why the first duty of all leaders is to define and face reality. Any strategy that is not built on the understanding of the external reality and a clear understanding of the internal environment will suffer from execution-malfunctions.

Perhaps this is why Sun Tzu in the Art of War wrote: “If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles. If you know yourself but not the enemy, for every victory gained you will also suffer a defeat. If you know neither the enemy nor yourself, you will succumb in every battle.” Strategy requires you to know yourself, know your opponents, know the terrain and understand the trends and shifts in the broader context.

Hope, without knowledge, analysis or thought, is not an effective strategy. Mere gambling is not problem solving. No serious shareholder would frown as management gambles and fumbles aimlessly and cluelessly in the hope of increasing shareholder value by mere chance.

Strategy is not just about playing to play the business game. It is not trying to reproduce something that was said in the MBA class without understand what one is doing. Strategy must clearly articulate the winning aspiration, define where the organisation will play.

Strategy must also define key boundaries that the organisation sets of itself. It must define what the organisation will not do. Strategy involves defining how the organisation will win in its chosen arenas or markets. Making these choices is not enough. It is important to define the capabilities that need to be in place in order to win and the management systems that are required.

Strategy itself is not difficult, but the thinking required could be challenging. Strategy is not mere copying what others are doing or regurgitating for lecture materials. Sometimes to understand what strategy is, you have to unmask what strategy is not.

Strategy analyses:

Analysis with focus could easily drown you in a sea of data. It is important in developing strategy to carry out depth analyses that confronts the realities of your business.

Externally it is important to get an appreciation of the financial history and profit pools of the industry, understand the overall business context, appreciate the customer base and the root causes.

Internally it is important to analyse the strategies, operations, culture, people and organisational growth brakes. Financially it is important to look at operating margins, cashflows, capital intensity, revenue growth, and the return on investment. Looking at these elements deeply surfaces strategic picture for the organisation.

Popular tools that are used in strategy analyses include the Strength, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats (SWOT) analysis and its variants, the Start-Stop-Sustain, PESTEL analysis, Industry Analyses like Porter’s Five Forces, Competitive Analysis like the Ansoff Matrix. The tools are many but what is important not to be hung up on the tools but to keep asking: “Why are we doing what we are doing?”

Strategy Tools like any tools help you in doing a job. It is important firstly to use the tools right and appropriately. Tools must not be employed to impress colleagues but to help shine the light and enable critical conversations. Sometimes people struggle with the move from tools to the development of the actual strategy. Strategy is not mere slide presentations designed to impress colleagues with the latest jargon. Some organisations will show you reams lengthy presentations with various analyses and you then ask: so where is your strategy? Regrettably, many stare at you blankly and wonder: what else should we do? Tools are helpful, but they are not an end in themselves. Popular tools are also not the only tools that are available. Hunt for tools, but do not forget what the purpose for the tools is.

Strategy goals:

The ambitions of key executives or shareholders shape organisations. However these goals, regardless of how daring they may be, are not in themselves a strategy. Strategy is more than just a mere aspiration. Goals are important and necessary but on their own, without a clear path of how to get to them, are not sufficient.

Never set goals to impress other people. Set goals that have meaning to you and have inspirational power. Big goals that ignore reality, that are not owned could impress observers but they sometimes live to haunt organisations and their leaders if they are confused with strategy.

Big Hairy Audacious Goals (BHAGs) are a powerful tool but they should never be abused. BHAGs help create focus, alignment and a shared ambition. They do have a motivational force if they are well set but regrettably, BHAGs on their own are not a strategy, they are just the first base.

Strategy forms:

Some organisations have strategy templates which they expect their teams to mechanically fill in the name of strategy development and then present at a strategy conference. The intentions are usually good and noble. Strategy forms allow for aligned conversations, comparability and ensure that the required bases are covered.

It is regrettable, in some cases forms become the main thing and the due strategy work is ignored. Formed are then hurriedly completed and many times they are a cut-paste-change date-shifting affair.

They are then presented to a group of corporate managers who get impressed and yawning gaps of lack of ownership are ignored because sometime the presentations are completed in the morning hours before the presentation is due. The presentation will indeed be impressive, but without ownership and a shared understand by the team, the strategies are dead of arrival and never get implemented.

Strategy form presentations created to impress senior managers and colleagues who may question this and that element but this exercise rarely constitutes real strategic thinking or meaningful strategic conversations. Strategy-form-filling is a sophisticated form managerial self deception that neither helps organisations to lift performance nor the organisations to change and improve things.

When crucial conversations about the past, the present and the future are ignore, strategies that are born are weak and suffer poor implementation prospects. This perhaps explains why many organisations are frustrated by their strategy processes that do not produce any rain. Although they sit through the so called strategy sessions, they find that little or no execution really takes place. Strategy is not form-filling, or powerpoint parading.

Strategy Ritual:

For some organisations strategy is treated as an annual rituals: no questioning, always done the same way, same period, same format, no real concern for deep reflection or interrogation of the strategy. When your strategy setting is a mere ritual, performed to gratify higher corporate beings, the organisation is headed for trouble and wasting resources.

So what really is strategy? How could you make your strategy formulation more effective? How could you improve your strategy conversations to become real confrontations of reality and not mere corporate poker? Who is helping you facilitate your strategy?

Committed to your greatness

Milton Kamwendo is a leading international transformational and motivational speaker, author, and a virtual, hybrid and in-person workshop facilitator. He is a cutting-edge strategy, team-building and organisation development facilitator and consultant. His life purpose is to inspire and promote greatness. He can be reached at: [email protected] and His website is: www.miltonkamwendo.com.