Building a Compelling and Impactful Strategy
Lessons learned from working with leading impact and local brands to build a compelling and uniquely sustainable advantage…
I have been consulting for large multinationals to small social enterprises and their investors for over 15 years now. I love digging into a company’s current strategy and uncovering the gaps and incredible unrealized opportunities to align meaning with meaningful financial results. This combination is critical to building a sustainable business- both culture and operations-wise, but also profitability wise, which is critical to attracting and retaining top talent.
Put Fresh Eyes on Your Model
In a startup to established business, it is hard to see all the gaps- or remember all the weaknesses- when you’re trying to get day-to-day things done and focus on hitting established OKRs. I have advised companies for many years now, but that does not mean I always saw my own blindspots - and my company certainly had them!
Yes, consultants are an added cost. Yes, it’s hard to find good ones that really get what you want and need. And also yes, it’s hard to focus on defining parameters of what you really need to solve when it seems so amorphous and overwhelming at times.
There are a few ways you can tackle this…
Hire a good generalist consultant who has seen many business models- perhaps even beyond your industry and geography- to conduct a 360-degree review and diagnostic of you business or key departments of concern. The world is incredibly flat when it comes to growth, international trade and supply chains. You will often benefit from consultants who can bring a broader lens to the table. Meanwhile, a quick diagnostic- almost like a management due diligence- will help you, the manager- know where you should be investing or changing core priorities.
Create an internal task force, led by a mid to senior manager with an entrepreneurial and generalist skill set. And, to ensure they stay tasked to uncovering, introducing and tackling innovation or business model gaps, tie their unique OKRs to these things. In other words, don’t make it a side project or add-on to core responsibilities or it will inevitably be deprioritized until too late.
Keep a Checklist of Common Blindspots
The person(s) above should help uncover you key pain points and blindspots. You probably already have a sense for them, but just in case, do the diagnostic and then write it all down in a template and checklist that is checked at least annually.
When I lectured and was an Entrepreneur-in-Residence (EIR) for Singularity University Ventures in Mountain View, CA, I taught leaders to map their ‘Keystone Factors.’ For you architecture aficionados, the keystone is the actual stone at the top of an archway that holds the entire door or arched entry to a building in place. Without a proper keystone (or in the business case, usually 10-12 ‘keystones’), your entry into a new product, new customer segment, new geography or new business model is likely to collapse- or at least be lopsided.
Get Out of the Box
If you don’t want to hire a consultant or are not in a position to do so, put together a team of you generalist, entrepreneurial staffers, advisors and managers for a brainstorm analyzing areas for improvement, other business models and companies they get excited to buy from or watch, and consider how these findings might apply to you business model to give it a healthy competitive boost.
Some other things I do to get out of my mental box and biases when I’m consulting for companies include:
Look at other sectors where keystone factors are similar or overlap. Are there lessons to take from those other models that could disrupt this industry?
Tap your network. No one can be an expert in or know everything, but you can know or access pretty stellar people who can help you think out of the box. I am forever grateful to my colleagues, friends, family and others who will indulge in my insatiable demand for brainstorms to design and build a better world - and who I can reach out to to get up to speed quickly on the nuances of different industries and types of challenges.
Get creative, then analyze it back to reality. Before your business manager mind shuts down some of your greatest, seemingly-crazy-at-first-glance concepts, just write them down. Then you can analyze them based on the Keystone Factors and other realities that may impact your direction.
Seriously consider the culture of your organization, leadership and sector. Your best most dynamic ideas are only valuable if they can get through these various parties to become a pilot and then reality.
