How to Run Strategy Meetings Like a Pro
I’ve attended and led many strategy meetings over the years. Some were a colossal waste of time.
3 questions successful strategy meetings answer:
- How can we create customers?
- How can we keep customers?
- What do we do better than competitors that is difficult to copy?
Peter Drucker said, “The purpose of a business is to create and keep customers.”
7 ways to screw up strategy meetings:
- Throw them together at the last minute.
- Define customer value poorly.
- Don’t think about what customers love about you.
- Believe your business is your product. Generac doesn’t sell generators. It sells a feeling of security.
- Get lost in minutia. Nothing like a rabbit hole to destroy effectiveness.
- Focus on solving problems rather than exploiting opportunities.
- Waste too much time predicting an uncertain future.
10 ways to run strategy meetings like a pro:
- Define what you really do. What’s your business?
- Determine the real value you bring customers, from your customer’s point of view.
- Clarify competencies and values that make you unique.
- Make success obvious. How will you know when you succeed?
- Exploit opportunities more than solving problems.
- Eliminate “good” options. Porter said, “The essence of strategy is choosing what not to do.”
- Advantage the entire organization (even if it might limit your department).
- Develop simple language that expresses strategy so that everyone, especially customers, know the value you bring.
- Institute mechanisms to monitor and measure progress.
- Engage in persistent, tenacious, recurring follow through and execution.
Bonus: Make time for casual conversation and private reflection.
Great strategy explains how you will be uniquely useful to current and potential customers.
What happens during the worst strategy meetings? The best?
Still curious:
93% of Successful Companies Abandon Their Original Strategy
Keeping Your Strategy Meetings Focused on the Long Term (hbr.org)
