I need help with my week 8 assignment for my Strategy Class

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JWI 540 – Lecture Notes (1214) Page 1 of 10

JWI 540: Strategy

Week Ten Lecture Notes

JWI 540 – Lecture Notes (1214) Page 2 of 10

MANAGING THE STRATEGY

What It Means

Managing a new strategy is not easy. It is not as simple as just rolling out the plan, making a pitch that

gets everyone excited, and then sitting back and watching the magic happen. New strategies can be

disruptive. They often take people out of their comfort zones and require new processes and metrics to

drive success. Some leaders will feel their job is done with the completion of the plan, but this is where

the real work begins.

Why It Matters

• Understanding the ongoing challenges of managing a new strategic initiative while continuing to operate the unchanged elements of the business is essential to ensuring success.

• Proactively identifying the triggers that will require modifications to your strategy enables your organization to move more quickly and to have action plans in place should certain events come to pass.

• Having a “living and agile strategy” allows your organization to move quickly to keep up with ever- changing conditions.

“You have to tie every milestone to

meeting a strategic objective because

you get the results you measure.”

“If you find you are not getting enough

money from the mother ship, nor are you

getting the best people. Fight like hell –

even throw a few elbows.”

Jack Welch

JWI 540 – Lecture Notes (1214) Page 3 of 10

YOUR STARTING POINT

1. Is there a process to reconvene the strategy team after the implementation has been launched

to evaluate actual performance against the goals?

2. What checkpoints are built into your strategic plan to guide key actions and ensure that they

are being executed properly?

3. Who will oversee identifying checkpoints and monitoring progress?

4. What methods will you put in place to monitor changes in the market environment while the

strategy is being implemented? Does it make sense to assign a single owner to stay on top of

the macro environment and communicate changes as they occur?

5. Do you have a plan to routinely seek customer feedback as the new strategy rolls out? If not,

how will you know if they are being impacted positively or negatively?

6. How will you determine if the new strategy is on the right track, but just needs more time and

support to overcome challenges versus making the call that you got it wrong and the strategy

needs to be changed?

JWI 540 – Lecture Notes (1214) Page 4 of 10

WHERE DO WE GO FROM HERE?

You have achieved the first milestones of your strategic plan. You are under budget and morale is high.

You are already seeing some promising results from one of your new product lines, and analysis of

customer demand indicates that you will soon want to increase your investments. So far, none of your

initiatives need to be slowed down or scrapped, but you are confident you have the metrics to identify

those that do and the processes in place to shift resources if necessary.

It is worth taking a moment, as we reach the end of this course, to assess not only where you are, but

also how you got here and where you should be heading.

LOOKING BACK

It seems a lifetime ago that you began considering the playing field on which to compete and the strategic

objectives that would help you win. Fortunately, you avoided the mistake of many companies that fail in

the beginning to sketch out a high-level, but clear picture of the task. You asked, “What is our overarching

goal? Where will we compete? How will we outperform our rivals?”

In those early days, some people said the formal strategy-setting process amounted to navel-gazing.

“Let’s get out and grow our business rather than talk about doing things,” they said. But you knew the

right response. If people naturally gravitated toward a goal, if circumstances never changed, and if

companies had unlimited resources, we would not need a formal strategy. Unfortunately, that is just not

the way business or the world works.

During the strategy-development process, members of the planning group debated directions the

company might go. Qualitative and quantitative analyses were performed. Different points of view were

discussed and debated, sometimes passionately, before choices were made. You approached strategy

using a combination of systematic and creative methods for generating options. You pulled in experts

from the industry and a mix of people from across the organization to add to the diversity. You were open

to input and feedback from others, understanding that the best plans are organic and iterative. And it

worked. Some crazy ideas were floated, new insights were shared, and progressively better ideas for

winning emerged!

After the dust settled, some of the options were combined and evaluated. It soon became clear how the

consideration of multiple alternatives not only yielded new possibilities, but also provided a critical stress

test before the choice was made. The strategy was ultimately devised using a combination of interrelated

options. Each piece reinforced the value-creating advantage at the heart of the strategy and made it more

difficult for competitors to copy. A portfolio of strategic opportunities of varying degrees of risk and

uncertainty was also developed to support the overall strategy.

Despite blending options and building a portfolio, you still kept in mind a single strategic goal: Winning.

JWI 540 – Lecture Notes (1214) Page 5 of 10

THE VALUE OF FLEXIBILITY AND STAYING THE COURSE

Many of the conversations along the way had to do with timing. Even after you had agreed on how and

where to create value, there were questions about when to compete. People in R&D wanted the company

to be a first mover in your industry, arguing that the first company to invest has the opportunity to shape

the basis of competition. But people in marketing lobbied for a fast-follower role, arguing that if

competitors went first, they would reveal their intentions. You would be able to use this information to

select the best response: ignore the move, match the investment, invest more, or invest differently. The

timing issue was ultimately settled in the context of your entire strategy, while leaving open the possibility

that matters could change.

In fact, as you developed a strategy, you had to go back to the drawing board numerous times because of

changes in external circumstances, a lack of internal support, or incomplete analysis. All the backtracking,

while frustrating, was fruitful. Sometimes, you came up with a superior idea, scrapping your original plans

to incorporate new and better thinking.

While you were in the middle of it all, your biggest competitor made a bold move, and some of your

colleagues wanted to abandon the strategic dialogue and react. After doing some analysis of customer

preferences and demand, you were able to see that the move, though bold, wasn't really a threat. Your

rival likely would not be successful in gaining any advantage over you. In fact, their approach might be

helping to raise overall awareness of the types of products you both offered.

This simple, yet powerful, exercise of examining other players’ moves provided a lesson in the value of

competitive analysis. All the speculation in the world wouldn’t help you as much as straightforward

reporting of what was really going on outside your company’s walls.

PUTTING THE STRATEGIC PLAN IN PLACE

You ultimately translated the broad objectives of your strategy into a set of activities to support those

goals. Doing this involved taking a holistic view of the strategy itself, plus your organization’s people,

structure, processes, and metrics. You then prioritized the most important activities, vowing to only tackle

the ones that mattered most. Activities ultimately translated into specific actions that would be taken

throughout the company. Those actions were typically generated by the business unit or other managers,

and then refined through an iterative back-and-forth with senior management, before being included in

the budget.

The details of the strategic plan were not set in stone but continued to be reviewed for needed

adjustments. The strategic plan embodied a truth about strategy-setting: Great strategies often originate

with a creative insight about how to create value, a big “Aha!” moment. But as they evolve, they must be

specific enough to help managers across an organization make consistent and correct decisions to

support that insight.

With a strategic plan in place, you now need to become deeply engaged in developing and defending the

unique advantage your company has chosen to exploit. You must be ready to defend your business

against new and unexpected competitors, monitoring indicators that could alert you to new entrants in

your industry.

JWI 540 – Lecture Notes (1214) Page 6 of 10

You will also be aware of the challenges that you face as you move forward with your strategy – whether

you will be making acquisitions, crafting strategic alliances, strengthening core competencies, or fueling

new technologies.

LEARNING AS YOU GO

The processes you followed along the way were systematic without being rigid. The pressure to settle on

a plan sometimes narrowed your vision, but overall, you balanced an eagerness to exploit existing assets

and capabilities with efforts to explore new ideas. You will need to move forward with this frame of mind.

You and your team are much more discovery-oriented than you were a few years ago, and everyone is

committed to making sure that the discoveries your company makes are appreciated and shared.

Strategy decisions will be made based on timely and accurate information, even if that means the sturdy

planks you just nailed down need to be pulled up and replaced.

You’ll need to be constantly:

• Updating your Fact Base: What do you know now that you didn’t know when you put together

your strategic plan? Thinking about your relative strengths, what are your competitors up to?

What are they likely to do next?

• Looking Outside your Organization: How have conditions changed? How are they likely to change

in the future?

• Looking Inside your Organization: Are there any emerging internal challenges or constraints that

could undermine your strategy?

Above all, be aware of the iterative nature of strategy. New information must always be considered. Fact-

based, honest debate must take place, with both the final decision makers and the analysts who did the

original work deeply involved. The option to stop the project must be considered, and criteria for moving

forward should be spelled out clearly.

Even successful projects often go through numerous iterations – not one or two, but many. One key to

success is creating an environment that balances a tough stance on performance with a lack of stigma

about projects that are redirected or discontinued. In most companies, a shift needs to occur from thinking

about go/no-go decisions to planning for the conditional and phased progress of a project.

THE IMPORTANCE OF PEOPLE

During the messy and nonlinear process of strategy development, planning, and implementation, always

remember how much people matter. Your senior managers were the key players in the process, but you

now realize how much your organization needs followers, innovators, and facilitators. You appreciate the

deep expertise of some of your colleagues and the broad thinking of others. Even those who played the

devil’s advocate forced you to be more precise and thoughtful; they added value to the process, although

they sometimes left you with egg on your face. You have a new respect for the role of informal networks

JWI 540 – Lecture Notes (1214) Page 7 of 10

and the dynamics of politics and power. Communicating with numerous individuals and groups, clarifying,

calming, encouraging, supporting, and challenging them in multiple ways stretches a manager’s

leadership skills.

As you take stock of all that has taken place, you realize you should feel tired. But in fact, you are

energized. You are excited every day when you step into your office. You are a member of a great team,

and you know you're poised for a winning season.

THE POWER AND THREAT OF UNCERTAINTY

As we have noted, some business leaders approach strategy with a kind of reverence – as if it is a

monolithic, almost sacred expression of a company’s destiny. In fact, it is a living, breathing set of

complementary objectives that change in response to events. For example, at any given time, your

company may be winning in one market while a serious threat looms in another. New opportunities may

emerge unexpectedly in a market segment where you are able to compete.

How do you manage multiple strategic objectives simultaneously? How do you anticipate competitive

threats so that you don’t lurch from crisis to crisis? Although these aren’t questions that a manager

necessarily has to answer early in their career, they’re important to keep in mind, no matter where you are

in the organizational hierarchy.

As we wrap up our course, remember the importance of maintaining strategic clarity while pursuing

multiple opportunities. This is essential due to one unchanging fact about any strategy – uncertainty. No

matter how well you have done your research, and no matter how well you have developed and executed

your plan, you can never be 100% certain that conditions will unfold the way you predicted. There will

always be uncertainty about changing markets, customer preferences, products, technology, and even

the skills needed to take advantage of opportunities.

To revisit one of our foundational premises, if everything was known with certainty, we wouldn’t need

strategies. Managers could plan for the future, and they would never have to make tough choices about

what to do when conditions changed. What would be the fun in that? Great strategists appreciate

uncertainty and use it to their advantage. Uncertainty provides the opportunity to surprise the competition

and satisfy customers in new ways. It decreases the chances that all competitors will come to market with

similar me-too offerings.

But uncertainty also presents obvious challenges. For example, the lack of reliable information increases

the likelihood of introducing a product before people are ready to buy it or just as their preferences are

changing.

Fortunately, strategy is not an all-or-nothing game. Instead of betting the company on a strategic move,

you can place a variety of bets with different levels of risk. You can create a balanced portfolio of strategic

opportunities that mix risk and reward.

JWI 540 – Lecture Notes (1214) Page 8 of 10

CLOSING THOUGHTS

As Jack said, “You have to always be willing to hit the refresh button.” Identifying a winning strategy isn’t

always about making the “right” choices. It’s more about making “good” choices. Strategy leaders must

focus on the likelihood of success for each option and the risks associated with it in order to narrow the

number of strategic options.

Here are a few final reminders of key points we covered:

• In assessing the playing field, do not define your market too narrowly. As a rule of thumb, if you

only have one or two competitors, you are probably underestimating or overly limiting the size of

your playing field.

• Strategists must balance risk and reward. They must be willing to place bets on moves that

create a good match between market opportunities and the company’s current or potential

capabilities.

• Strategy leaders often need to increase their company’s capabilities to meet the needs of a

desired strategic objective. How to do this – whether organically or through acquisitions – is

critical to success.

• Companies need to match new ventures with the right people to run them, especially if an

opportunity is far from a company’s core business. The types of leaders who excel in this kind of

situation are big-picture thinkers who are comfortable with ambiguity.

• Don’t allow your strategy, however good it is, to get carved in stone. There will always be

judgments to make when resistance is encountered and times get tough. You must be willing to

face the facts of the market honestly and to make the call on whether to hold the line and give

your plan the time it needs to succeed, or whether a change of direction is required.

• Finally, get every brain in the game. An engaged team that understands what it needs to do to

win, and that comes to work every day energized to execute the plan, is the best strategic

weapon any organization can have.

JWI 540 – Lecture Notes (1214) Page 9 of 10

SUCCEEDING BEYOND THE COURSE

As you read the materials and participate in class activities, stay focused on the key learning outcomes

for the week and how they can be applied to your job.

• Recognize that strategy implementation is an ongoing, dynamic, iterative process

Plan to schedule strategy-review meetings at 3 months, 6 months and one year to evaluate

progress. Prepare a detailed agenda well in advance to ensure participants come to the meetings

with all the performance reports they are responsible for gathering and sharing.

• Identify critical skills for actively managing strategy to reach desired results

Your strategy is not going to manage itself. There may be tendencies to slip back to the old ways

of doing things. Ongoing training may be needed for team members who implement the new

processes. There may be additional tracking and reporting needed to identify and address

issues that surface. Take the time to identify the skills and supports that will be needed before

the strategy is launched and get your team members what they need to get the job done. The

success of the strategy depends on it.

• Explore approaches to capture market data and evaluate changing conditions against

your chosen strategy

Even the best strategies can fail if market conditions change in unexpected ways. Until we

develop a foolproof way to predict the future, your best approach is to stay on top of the data and

keep an eye on the horizon looking for changes. Identify the key metrics you will need to track.

Develop a calendar and a report to share these metrics with stakeholders. Review this as part of

your regular progress meetings to determine where adjustments to the strategy may be needed.

JWI 540 – Lecture Notes (1214) Page 10 of 10

ACTION PLAN

To apply what I have learned this week in my course to my job, I will…

Action Item(s)

Resources and Tools Needed (from this course and in my workplace)

Timeline and Milestones

Success Metrics