Future Vision - Lifting the Fog
In competitive markets great strategy empowers a business to identify and capture opportunity. It enables smart managers to anticipate change, manage through obstacles and build on a company’s advantages.
Strategy and the vision that drives it aren’t easy. They call for analytical thinking, informed judgment, objective decision-making and well-structured implementation. It’s a process that continuously works to improve achievement of corporate objectives. It is not a "fill out the forms" exercise to be delegated or one that’s an afterthought to a budget process. Strategy is a task for business leadership. Vision is a task of futurity.
Strategic vision takes the day-to-day out of the mix and focuses on the future. It creates a rallying point for a preferred state of a company. It goes beyond pedestrian business plans used to peek over a one-year horizon or a list of goals for the next budget cycle. Strategic vision evaluates today’s decisions in tomorrow’s context – as uncertain and volatile as that may be – it creates a snapshot of the future.
Formulating strategic vision begins when management seeks answers to the tough questions. Far reaching inquiries that delve deep into the organization's "reason for being". Examples include:
- What are your top three comparative market advantages?
- Are you reaching the right prospects…with the right message?
- Why do you lose sales to competitors?
- What is your big idea - the why choose you clutter buster?
Answers to these and other challenges will help leadership analyze and most often, reconsider an organization's most basic business assumptions. It’s a process that helps refine (or re-set) stakeholder expectations, business practices, performance metrics, market positioning, and customer values.
Great strategy without execution is a waste of time and resources. Taking action is the most critical and most difficult stage of any strategy process. Tactical output such as product introduction, facility start-up, market entry (or withdrawal), brand positioning or reengineered operations are complex undertakings. The implications are far-reaching in terms of resource deployment, operating capacity and human talent.
It takes balance, business acumen and common sense to succeed in a competitive marketplace. Too much reliance on strategy will lead to bureaucracy, decision paralysis and missed market opportunity. Conversely, if you are not prepared to take action based on strategic vision, either because of inadequate resources, poor communication or “ready-fire-aim” leadership, results will disappoint. Future success calls for the right mix of strategy, action and leadership.
NOTE Look for an upcoming posting on Intelligent Implementation - the critical balance between informed decisions and taking action.
© Lindsay Resnick
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