If you’ve read my recent leadership essay – The 7 Leadership Domains – you’ll remember that I mentioned a few leadership strategies at the end of each section?
I’m going into more detail over the coming weeks on some of these strategies. I’ve picked one of my favourite strategies from each section to share more details.
Let’s get underway…
The first strategy comes from Strategic Leadership domain. Today I’m focusing on “Strategic Review”. This is such a useful strategy that helps you to tease out the operational improvements you need to make in the business to support your revenue and profit growth.
All too often business plans show a revenue and profit forecast and focus on the sales and marketing strategies to get there. That’s only half of the picture.
Here’s why…
Just say that your sales and marketing strategies went extremely well, and you increased your sales by 50% in a few months. That’d be great you say. Yes, it would …but where do the wheels start falling off with the extra volume?
A Strategic Review causes you to ask questions about important elements of the business such as;
- Same page (is everybody on the same page? If not a team can pull itself apart as growing pains set in and the pressure to perform rises.)
- Culture (Do you have a ‘go the extra mile’ attitude in the business that is going to help you cope under the strain of increased volume, for example?)
- Team (Do you have the right people to grow? What is the next person(s) that need to be hired? At what level of turnover increase do you hire them?)
- Skills (Does your team have the skills to navigate and facilitate growth? Here’s just one example. As your business grows, some of your people will step up to leadership for the first time. Who will support, monitor and mentor them?)
- Structure (As your business grows, so will your team. Do you have a structure that supports leadership, supervision and performance management? What do you need to do now, so that when you have a large team, everyone is coordinated?)
- Systems (There is usually one best way to do each job in the business. A way that meets the performance standards that you want and fits with the culture you want. What is your plan for getting this documented and trained?)
- Strategy (Do you have a competitive strategy that will help you win in the marketplace? Often, businesses have sales targets, marketing tactics but no real sustainable competitive advantage that allows them to win. Make sure that you do.)
There are other areas that can be looked at in a strategic review. These include resources, target markets, leadership, product/service mix and more.
A strategic review is a key to not only helping you climb the ladder of success but making sure that you put your ladder up against the right wall.
Good luck!
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