Don’t Give Your Strategy a Haircut.
he front page of every newspaper is full of doom and gloom today and almost every client I know is the midst of business planning.
What is their temptation in this environment? Give your strategy a haircut. Cut back on everything. No new initiatives. No new hires. No business travel. No external consultants. No big pay increases.
What is the impact? Mediocrity.
What's the alternative? Use business planning as an opportunity to be really thoughtful about which initiatives you will keep and fully support and which initiatives should be axed or shelved. Review each major initiative in detail.
Ask yourself a few questions about each major project in your business plan.
Is this initiative essential to our organization's long term objectives? Will this initiative matter to us in 5 years? Is this initiative well planned and well resourced? Is this initiative important but not urgent? (i.e. Can it wait?) If the initiative is not mission critical, not well planned and not urgent -- axe it or shelve it.
For the critical few initiatives that survive, make sure they are fully resourced. Do not give them a haircut. Focused spending is always tougher. It takes more work and it takes more courage. It is almost always the right way to go.
Similarly, as you review your business strategy, review and manage your talent.
Save costs by removing people who are under-performers and wait to replace them if possible. Remove low performing businesses but keep and redeploy the good people where possible. Do not save costs by cutting salary increases to star performers. Make sure your star performers are working those mission critical initiatives you identified in business planning. At all costs keep your good people motivated and busy.
Doom and gloom can be a great opportunity to focus on the right things and become even better.
Posted by Sandra Oliver on September 17, 2008
Leadership, Leading in a Downturn, Strategy Development & Execution
