The most critical decisions leaders make, usually, do not flash URGENT on the dashboard

                Strategic decisions are, perhaps, the most impactful game changing work leaders need to do in an organization. The problem is these critical success factors, usually, don’t flash URGENT on your dashboard of the highest priority work needing your focus and time. At the speed of business today, surveys suggest that over 50% of companies are either stable or in the process of redefining their business. Stable, in terms of Strategy, can be one of the worst places to be because your growth has slowed down, but there is plenty of revenue so you don’t think there is a problem or issue. I remember working with one successful firm that was sitting at a comfortable place, not concerned about the fact that growth had stalled for a number of quarters. It is extreme, but the company was in boxes lining the garage of the CEO two years later.

               One great way to move forward from this place I call future-proofing the firm before you actually need to change a lot. It involves Business process mapping, competitive analysis of capabilities, identifying future customer value propositions, as just a few of the steps in the process. I was working with one successful firm that had been relatively flat for a number of quarters, which, it turned out, was not the biggest problem. The biggest problem was the fact that they were 70% dependent on one client who had set up a downward forcing pricing war to commoditize their work. Over a few months, we did the whole process of analysis and scenario planning on multiple directions of where the firm could go with their resources. They made good decisions, and tripled growth in 5 years. It is not always that spectacular,, but I find having an outside consultant keeping everyone on track to do this process will catch critical success factors before they are Shouting URGENT on the dashboard, where it may be too late. If you would like to learn more about this process, or simply have an outside set of ears to kick around these decisions, you can contact me at [email protected].