You’re trying to think strategically. What are the most common mistakes you might make?

1 Confusing strategy with planning

One of the first mistakes you might make is to assume that strategy and planning are the same thing. While they are both important aspects of leading a team, they are not interchangeable. Strategy is about defining your purpose, goals, and competitive advantage, while planning is about outlining the actions, resources, and timelines to achieve them. If you focus too much on planning, you might lose sight of the bigger picture and the underlying logic of your strategy. Conversely, if you focus too much on strategy, you might neglect the practical details and the execution of your plan. To avoid this mistake, you need to balance both strategy and planning, and ensure that they are aligned and coherent.

2 Ignoring feedback and data

Another common mistake you might make is to ignore or dismiss the feedback and data that you receive from your team, your customers, your competitors, and your environment. Feedback and data are essential sources of information and insight that can help you test your assumptions, validate your results, and adjust your strategy accordingly. If you ignore or reject them, you might miss out on valuable opportunities, overlook potential threats, and make poor decisions based on outdated or inaccurate information. To avoid this mistake, you need to cultivate a culture of learning and experimentation, and use feedback and data to inform and improve your strategy.

3 Being too rigid or too flexible

A third common mistake you might make is to be either too rigid or too flexible with your strategy. Being too rigid means that you stick to your strategy no matter what, even when it is clearly not working or when the situation changes dramatically. Being too flexible means that you change your strategy too often, without a clear rationale or direction, and without giving it enough time to produce results. Both extremes can undermine your credibility, confuse your team, and waste your resources. To avoid this mistake, you need to find the right balance between stability and adaptability, and be willing to revise your strategy when necessary, but also committed to implementing it consistently.

4 Failing to communicate and engage

A fourth common mistake you might make is to fail to communicate and engage your team and other stakeholders in your strategy. Communication and engagement are vital for building trust, alignment, and motivation among the people who are involved in or affected by your strategy. If you fail to communicate and engage them, you might face resistance, misunderstanding, or apathy from your team and other stakeholders, and lose their support and cooperation. To avoid this mistake, you need to communicate your strategy clearly and frequently, and engage your team and other stakeholders in co-creating, implementing, and evaluating your strategy.

5 Overlooking culture and values

A fifth common mistake you might make is to overlook the role of culture and values in your strategy. Culture and values are the intangible elements that shape the behavior, attitudes, and beliefs of your team and your organization. They influence how you define your purpose, how you make decisions, how you work together, and how you relate to your customers and your community. If you overlook culture and values, you might create a strategy that is inconsistent, incompatible, or irrelevant to your team and your organization, and fail to inspire and motivate them. To avoid this mistake, you need to understand and align your strategy with the culture and values of your team and your organization, and use them as a source of strength and differentiation.