It’s one of the lesser joys of being an organisational consultant when the client hands you their latest strategy study. It’s invariably long and full of great analysis. All very clever stuff you are tempted to say, but does anyone really understand it? Most good strategy comes down to a few simple ideas which you can often express as simple ‘shifts’. These capture the essence of what is going to be different in the future, for example:
‘Moving from being a regional player to being a global player’
‘Moving from being a set of disconnected businesses to being one firm’
‘Moving from a
It’s good for SMEs to have a number of people that they can call upon for advice and support.
A few years ago when my business was reviewing its proposition and strategy, we realised that we’d reach that age – and growth stage – when we would benefit from a fresh, external perspective: people who were prepared to challenge our thinking and help us reach sound market-based decisions.
We didn’t want people who would take on the formal roles of non-executives (though that of course may be the best option for many larger businesses); we needed people with whom we could share
I read with interest the recent MacLeod Review by David Macleod and Nita Clarke, in essence a comprehensive review of employee engagement. At its heart is a simple, clear message. Employee engagement does make a difference to business performance. There’s nothing new in that, but the real import of the review is the rallying cry it makes for a national awareness campaign.
That provides a real test for Peter Mandelson’s Department for Business Innovation & Skills. Can government show the imagination and skill to galvanise employers and leaders to put the lessons of this report to work? For if employee engagement
In today’s edition of the FT, management columnist Stefan Stern, writes that “business leaders ought to recognise, as they catch their breath after months of turbulence, that the strategy they were pursuing until recently is unlikely to be right for today. .. Leaders need to develop sensitivity to the mood of the organisation if they want to avoid the unpleasant surprise of being confronted by colleagues who refuse to follow the script.”
As we know, organisational identity offers a point of stability when everything else is changing.
Stefan goes on to say “in a battle between culture and strategy, culture usually wins. So
We’ve just had the first opportunity to discuss the findings of our research with a group of clients. A lively and enjoyable discussion over breakfast reminded us of the power of thinking together.
Testing the key themes in the report against the challenges facing our clients in their businesses today, it was exciting to see a consensus emerge that brings together the four themes in a compelling story. One that’s not only relevant to the current challenging market conditions but also, as someone said, a model for the next five to ten years.
‘Strategy evolution: adapting to a new world’ brings together the shared intelligence of 45 of today’s leaders on how to make your strategy work in the new business environment – the culmination of our research, and precious time kindly given up some very busy leaders to share their experiences of the new risks to successful strategy execution.
During these frank conversations we were perhaps surprised to find little evidence of the desire to reduce their exposure to risk. Instead, we found a growing awareness of the need to be open to all the new opportunities present in the changing
