You can also connect with us on:
Leadership Solutions: Executive Coaching and Leadership Development specializing in Strategy Development and Implementation
  • Home
  • About
  • Coaching
    • Coaching Offer!
    • How I work and why you should work with me
    • The Benefits of Coaching
    • Effective Teams
    • Executive Coaching
    • Coaching and Mentoring: Developing Managers as Coaches & Mentors
    • Difficult Team Conversations
    • Choosing a Coach
  • Strategy
    • What is Strategy? >
      • What it takes to make a good Strategy
      • Diagnosing the internal environment
      • Figuring Out How to Reach the Promised Land
      • Strategy: External Analysis
      • The Competitive Environment
      • Defining the Challenge and Creating the Guiding Policy
      • WIGs, Scoreboards and Tracking Progress
    • Strategic Leadership >
      • Strategic Thinking
      • Strategic Thinking (cont.)
      • Strategic Acting
      • Strategic Acting (cont.)
      • Strategic Acting (cont.)
      • Strategic Influencing
      • Strategic Influencing (cont.)
      • Strategic Influencing (cont.)
      • Strategic Leadership Teams
      • Strategy as a Learnining Process
      • Summing Up Strategic Leadership
    • Strategic Thinking >
      • What is Strategic Thinking?
      • Strategic Thinking as a Discipline
      • Where to Play and How to Win
      • Bucking an Industry Norm
      • Replicating Pockets of Excellence
      • Questions about Strategic Thinking
  • Leadership
    • Developing Business Leaders
    • Personality and Business
    • Self-Leadership >
      • Selling when you are not a Sales Person
      • Meetings! Bloody Meetings! Be Mindful
      • Resilience. How Resilient are You?
      • Resilience: Build your Own
      • Build Your Team's Resilience
    • Leadership >
      • #UselessLosers
      • Leadership is Exercised One Conversation at a Time
      • Presenteeism - Doing more harm than good
      • 5 Steps to Develop your Leadership Skills
    • Culture Change
  • Clients
    • What Our Clients Say >
      • What a Massive Shift
      • Our small part in the fight against Corruption
  • Articles
  • Contact

Strategy as a Learning Process



Picture
Strategic leaders are quite clear that strategy is a learning process – we start with our strategy; we get some things right; we get some things wrong; we learn from our mistakes and successes; and we make adjustments to our strategy. And this is a continuous process. However, company culture can either support this or constrain it. Consider your own company in the light of the characteristics below. How does your own business either support or constrain strategic leadership?
Strategic culture
What did you learn about your own organization or division? What could you do to create a shift towards a culture that is supportive of strategic leadership? What will happen if you do nothing?

The most important thing to get clear is that strategy is not an event. It is a learning process that consists of the following:

1. Assessing where we are:

    What is happening in the competitive environment?
    What is happening in the market?
    What are the challenges and obstacles in our way?
    What are the opportunities in the external environment?

2. Getting clear on who we are and where we want to go:

    Where do we want to take this organisation?
    What is our big, hairy audacious goal?
    Do we have a vision of the future that is sufficiently compelling that it will be embraced by all – touching their hearts and their minds?

3. Figuring out how to get there:


    Who should be involved?
    What are our key strategic drivers?
    What do we need to be obsessive, neurotic freaks about doing?
    How will we measure and track our progress?

4. Making the journey:

    Are we obsessively disciplined about executing the strategy?
    Are we staying on track despite the whirlwind of our operational priorities?
    Are we managing the tension between the long-term strategy and short-term performance?

5. Checking progress:

    Are we obsessive about tracking our progress?
    Do we show our progress on a scorecard that is visible and motivating?
    Do we adjust course when our lead measures are not producing the required lag measures?
    Do we regularly review how we are doing?
    What did we set out to achieve?
    What are we actually achieving?
    What is working?
    What is not working?
     What have we learned?
     What do we need to do differently going forward?

6. Revising our strategy:

    How do we need to adjust course based on what we are learning?
    Who else needs to be involved?
    What needs to change in the way we do strategy?

Based on what you have learned about strategy being a learning process, what do you need to change in the way you do strategy?



The final article in this series is an overview of strategic leadership.

Recommended Reading:


“Becoming a Strategic Leader” by Richard L. Hughes and Katherine Colarelli Beatty (ISBN 0-7879-6867-6).
“The New Strategic Thinking” by Michael Robert (ISBN 0-07-146224-4)
“Execution: The Discipline of Getting Things Done” by Larry Bossidy & Ram Charan  (ISBN 0609610570)
“Good Strategy, Bad Strategy” by Richard Rumelt (ISBN 978-1-84668-480-7)
HBR 10 Must Reads: On Change Management
HBR 10 Must Reads: On Strategy

Whats Next?

Leadership Development
Executive Coaching
Business Strategy

What my clients say

Articles
    Work We've Done
    Self-leadership
    Strategic Leadership
    Strategic Thinking
    Strategy

Call me! 082 5519504
Picture
Picture
Picture

    What improvements or changes do you seek?

Submit