🎯 Keep Strategy Simple
🌪️ Enemy of Strategy
🏋️ Strategy Is Work
🎯 Keep Strategy Simple
In the words of Avril Lavigne, “Why’d you have to go and make things so complicated?” Keep your strategy simple!
A daunting list of priorities is not only distracting — it slows growth.
According to research by Booz & Company, “As an executive team’s priority list grows, the company’s revenue growth in fact declines relative to its peers.”
The reverse is true. Companies that focus on one to three strategic priorities outperform their peers.
Why? Because it’s a simple application of resources. When you focus your entire organization on a few “Strategic Choices,” they get more of the right things done.
One Stat to Watch
60%
Geopolitical instability remains the top concern for 60% of CEOs surveyed by Fortune/Deloitte. The report found, “With upcoming elections top of mind, geopolitics, inflation, and regulation dominate the list of disruptions facing leaders.”
🌪️ Enemy of Strategy
The real enemy of strategy is your day job!
FranklinCovey describes the pressure of your job as the “whirlwind.” It’s those urgent asks and tasks that rob your attention and keep you distracted on doing the things that matter.
As entrepreneurs, we have lots of metaphors for the whirlwind. We say things like, “We’re working in the business versus on the business.” Or we lament about needing to get down to the real work.
It’s an endless battle. FranklinCovey writes in their book, The 4 Disciplines of Execution, “Can you remember an important initiative that launched well and then died? Was it with a loud crash and a tremendous explosion? Or did it go down quietly over time, suffocated by the whirlwind?”
Most strategy loses out to slow suffocation due to the daily pressure and commitments of our jobs.
This is why being so focused on your priorities is essential. Strategy at its core is about leading change. You are carving out and protecting time from the whirlwind in order to achieve your objectives.
🏋️ Strategy Is Work
Hard work may not seem glamorous, but it’s at the heart of every successful business.
Angela Duckworth writes in Grit, “Without effort, your talent is nothing more than unmet potential. Without effort, your skill is nothing more than what you could have done but didn’t.”
Athletes, for instance, don’t brag about their training. In fact, most hate it.
Angela continues, “Nobody wants to show you the hours and hours of becoming. They’d rather show the highlight of what they’ve become.” Practice is hard, grueling work, but athletes love what training delivers: competing and winning at the sport they love.
The same is true in business. Growing a successful business and brand is dependent on the concentrated efforts of smart, dedicated people who go the extra mile.
Call “hard work” for what it is — a core value.
It’s ok to say your team works harder. It’s ok to expect more from your people. It’s ok to put in the hours if you’re working for something you believe in. Hard work is a good thing.
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