Prepared Mind 21: Objectives, Responsibilities, Capabilities

Unless you’re starting a business from scratch, you already have strategies and plans for your business or unit. They may not be documented, but they exist. Question: How good is their foundation?

Baseline.

Answer the following questions in writing. Seriously, write the answers. If you can’t, it’s likely you don’t know the answers. And, please, avoid jargon.

·??????? What is your organization’s overarching strategy?

Now, do the same thing for your unit.

·??????? What is your unit’s strategy?

Did you provide general or specific answers? The more specific the better. Remember, you can’t execute what you don’t understand. Get clarity! Avoid fluff!

Now, let’s see if your strategy makes sense considering your basic objectives, responsibilities, and needed capabilities.

Organize your thinking.

The following framework shows the objectives to be attained, responsibilities of leaders, and their needed capabilities.

You have three objectives.

The strategy for every organization and the units within it rest on three foundational objectives: its vision, values, and goals.

The focus of strategy is to use these objectives as guides and, simultaneously, to make them real and relevant as the world continues to change.

Strategy always addresses the question of how these objectives will be accomplished.

• How will we attain our vision of success? What does success look like? You can’t develop a plan unless you know the essence of the vision, both for the organization and for your unit. For example, might you envision long-term growth? Might it be short-term survival?
• How will we use our values to move forward? You must understand the real values and use them as decision criteria. They are not simply words on a piece of paper. For example, you may say you value your employees as partners, but do you treat them as such?
• Goals are the major milestones and measures along the path to your vision. Goals give direction and must be understood by the entire organization. Goal attainment is used to measure progress. For example, can you briefly describe what your unit must accomplish in the next six months?

Vision, values, and goals exist in all organizations. Sometimes they are formally expressed and sometimes they are simply “understood.” That said, you need to consciously consider if any or all of them need to be reframed to reflect the current conditions in which the organization finds itself.

You should be able to:

• Write a description of envisioned strategic success for your unit.
• State the values that drive decisions for your unit.
• Explain the current goals for your unit.

You have four responsibilities.

Regarding strategy, every leader has four fundamental responsibilities.

• Sense the signal of change. You need to look “out there” and note the events and emerging trends that will trigger the need to change your organization (and then your unit) to survive and thrive in the evolving business environment.
• Make sense of the evolving signals. Some of the changes you sense will help your organization; others will hurt. This is the work of thinking critically about your present and desired state (vision) and the alternative ways in which you might move toward the desired state.
• Decide on a specific course of action. This responsibility hits at the heart of being pragmatic. There are always multiple paths to the future. Which has the greater chance of success?
• Act. Close the gap between strategic intention and an executed strategy.

You should be able to:

• Document events and evolving trends that may change the vision or goals for your unit and the reason you need to modify your unit’s strategy.
• Document the assumptions that must be true if you are to succeed.
• Define three or four options for modifying your existing strategy.
• Explain and defend the option you recommend.

You need four capabilities.

Examining the four responsibilities leads to the conclusion that there are four associated capabilities that managers and professionals need. Each of the capabilities uses two of the responsibilities as guideposts.

Considering the organization’s vision, values and goals, you need to:

• Think carefully and critically about the changes you sense and the options available for moving forward. Who will be your internal champions and challengers?
• Decide on the option that has the best chance of success given the resources available, the urgency of making changes and the risks that you and the organization are willing to accept. You may need to influence others who also need to make changes.
• Execute the decision in a timely manner to close the gap between strategic intention and its executed reality. Do the best you can in the time you have.
• Learn and improve, knowing that the larger world continues to evolve, and that strategy is never permanent. It needs to evolve at least as fast as the environment is evolving.

You should be able to:

• Explain the changes in the larger environment (ecosystem and organization) that are triggering the need to modify your strategy.?
• Analyze the strategic options you have considered and why you chose the path you plan to follow.
• Write a draft plan for your unit.

Bottom line.

Build your strategies on a solid foundation. Know your objectives. Accept your responsibilities. Strengthen your capabilities. ?

Coming soon.

We are working on a series of short online workshops (not webinars) that will be offered under the heading of The Strategic Business Thinker. They will be "application heavy" and will have fewer than twenty participants. Stay tuned or reach out to me with questions.

Bill