How to Build a Company Strategy

Hello and thank you for joining me on another edition of my LinkedIn newsletter! This week we have advice from Richard Rumelt, the author of The Crux ! And later on today, the guest for my weekly Newsweek interview show, Better, is the author of Hustle & Float , Rahaf Harfoush! Tune in at 12 pm EDT / 9 am PDT/5 pm BST for a discussion about how to reclaim time in our lives for creativity! I hope you’ll join in on the conversation and send us your questions. We’ll be meeting?here .

If you can’t make today’s interview, there’s no need to worry, because yes - there is a replay available! We always upload my weekly interviews to my YouTube page . If you’d like to be notified when the newest episode is available, subscribe to my channel and you’ll receive a notification.

Richard noticed when he approached companies to ask for their strategy, after signing a bevy of NDAs and agreements not to reveal plans, that most of them all have the same plan: we’re going to invest in the growing markets, satisfy our customers, and make more money. The reality is, that those are all aspirations and not a blueprint. That is what strategy is for.?You can learn even more from Richard when you watch our interview here . Here are some initial thoughts on how you can start your company’s gameplan towards real progress:

Foundations of strategy

“The essence of strategy has been for thousands and thousands of years. You focused your efforts where the enemy is weak or where the opportunity is great. And you don't try to do everything at once. As Napoleon said, you fight the battles you can win. So all of that is classical strategy. Leaders become strategists when they begin to turn away from strategy as a list of wishes for outcomes. Instead, they really begin to balance on the few actions they can take that focus energy and resources on a critical problem.”

Focus on challenges instead of goals

“My answer is first to get the bag of ambitions out there. Everyone wants to talk about what they want to achieve, and that's fine. Just lay it out. Then you have to look at challenges. You've got to sidestep away from the traditional step of saying, ‘Here are our goals and here's what we're going to do.’ Instead, start with a diagnosis of the situation you're in. What's making things difficult and blocking you from achieving any of those ambitions. Typically after some hours of conversation, you'll get somewhere around ten challenges, and then you can break some of those into sub-challenges.”

Have the courage to make the call

“Actual strategy is fairly rare. Most organizations, nations, states, and companies, they just muddle along. They don't really engage in strategy. The big companies were built by a serious entrepreneur two or three generations ago, and now they're run like an apartment complex by a bunch of people who are collecting the rent. It's scary to change course. Machiavelli said there is nothing more risky and difficult than a change of the way of doing things.”

Thank you as always for taking the time to read this week’s newsletter! On a final note, if you are looking to set aside some time to work on a strategy for your own personal goals and career aspirations, check out my free Long Game self-assessment workbook, which you can download here .

Wishing you health and success -?

Dorie