A Decision-Making Process
"When they get to own a P&L or become the CEO, in many cases executives are rusty at strategy or have never even been given a set of tools to set strategy," says management consultant Tim Lewko.
In "MAKING BIG DECISIONS BETTER", Lewko provides tools that enable executives to develop a strategy for moving their companies toward greater profitability and market leadership.
A sound strategy process comprises four distinct phases:
Appraise: What's going on externally and internally?
Decide: What are the key products, markets, and capabilities?
Plan: How to implement and achieve decisions?
Adjust: What's working, not working, and why?
By taking the initiative to define strategy, executives will come away with powerful benefits:
- Simplify what products, markets and capabilities to focus on/not focus on.
- Align executive team so members are working on the same page of issues.
- Build decision-making speed by having a single starting point.
The best CEO's know their mandate is to chart and execute a course that their leadership team owns, understands and can translate to the employees on the front-lines. It must drive decision-making.
Strategy is decision-making. Decision-making is strategy. The two of them cannot be disconnected. They are in fact the same.
Source: Tim Lewko: Making Big Decisions Better: How to Set and Simplify Business Strategy
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