Uncover the key 6 questions you need to ask yourself around setting your Strategic timeframes, creating deadlines, getting clear on your “Business Gro

We are now going deep into Time frames and setting your BGI’s aka Business growth indicators. Take a look at the first three boxes on the bottom half of the Strategy on a Page diagram, to the right of the vertical dotted line.

You will see

Long Term Strategy (the next 12 months)

Medium Term Strategy (the next quarter)

?Short Term Strategy (the next month)

Now, we touched on timescales briefly in one of my earlier posts, but now is the time to really understand what ?Short, Medium and Long Term really means for you and your business. I cannot emphasise enough how important it is to understand this and get it right.

Before you get defensive and explain that your industry is different, the reality is that all industries have business cycles and market trends that are unique to them. Layer on top of that the different dynamics related to the size of any individual business plus whether it is a new or established enterprise, and you see a myriad of variables.

Some industries are stable and predictable, others are more dynamic and responsive.

With larger companies in a stable marketplace, long term can mean five to ten years.

With some of the digital media companies I’m working with, typically the long term is just over a year, or sometimes two years at the most because the dynamic in the marketplace is changing so fast.

To go beyond one to two years in the digital media world would be futile because by the time we’ve reached a year or six months, the landscape has probably changed.

In addition, there are also cultural dimensions to this, both national culture as well as the corporate culture of the organisation itself. As we said earlier, some countries, like Japan, consider long term to mean anything up to one hundred years.

With so many variables, this is the reason that so many people are put off from engaging with the strategy process.

But if you remember, I did say that strategy IS simple.

So simple that it can fit on one page!

So before your eyes glaze off with too many possibilities, let us provide you with an easy way of applying this stuff to your business, the size it is right now, and the real world it occupies.

So, what do time frames mean to you?

Ask yourself these questions;

·????? How fast is your industry moving?

·????? How often do dramatic changes or market forces create the need to change course?

·????? How predictable are those changes in your marketplace?

·????? What can you learn by looking at the market leaders in your marketplace?

·????? What is it that drives change with your customers?

·????? What time frame feels right for you where you could plan ahead with confidence?

The way we all perceive time will be different and largely influenced by the pace of life that we lead.

When we are very young and count down the days to the start of a holiday by the number of “sleeps”, time just seems to drag. Later on, as the world of business engulfs us, it seems that no sooner have we started the week than Friday is upon us. Yes, and the policemen seem to be getting younger as well!

Time is our most precious possession, which is why we are taking it so seriously here.

We can take back control of time if we have a clear idea of what needs to be done, and by when, in order for us to stay on track and achieve those bigger goals that seem just over the horizon at the moment.

Now, typically in 90% of the business that I work with, long term strategy means one year. Medium term is one quarter….and short term is a month.

Bear in mind that these are the time frames that you, or your board or shareholders, will be holding yourself to account by, and taking stock of progress in.

Deadlines cause things to happen and review dates to take stock of what has actually happened are absolutely essential. These milestones are essential to avoid drifting.

If you are a start-up business, for you the Long Term may well be one quarter, medium-term being a month and short-term being a week because there are so many dynamics and so much going on.

If you are in any doubt or unsure, go with one year, one quarter and one month and get on with it, but don’t procrastinate! You can change time frames later if they don’t work for you.

Typically, I look my clients in the eye and say, “We are going to map Long Term Strategy now and you need to be comfortable with it so without thinking, and I need an answer in five seconds tops, what does long term mean to you? Go!”

Your gut reaction is usually the right answer – so decide!

As the leader of your business, one of the qualities you will need is to have a wide field of vision and thus the ability to be able to stand back, at regular intervals, and take in the bigger picture.

This is not easy if the day-to-day operational requirements of the business are urgent and demanding.

I once worked with a company in the financial services industry which comes under my definition of a stable industry, and one where a five year Long Term Strategy would be considered the norm.

However, the Managing Director was so engulfed in the day-to-day and week-by-week demands of the business that he found it difficult to map out the next two weeks. In these circumstances, we have to reduce his timeline to 1 month segments because he was so much in the ‘now’. What I am saying is that there are no hard and fast rules to this because everyone is different. But you will need to bear this in mind when getting ‘buy in’ from the rest of the team. Now, before moving on, I would like to draw your attention to the three boxes on the Strategy on a Page diagram, directly above the Long Term, Medium and Short Term.

As you will see, there is a vertical alignment for each of the strategies to a corresponding Business Growth Indicator.

These will hold you to account, give you a mirror to hold up to your business and give you the means to measure your progress.

The key point to this is, whatever strategy is going on and whatever time frame you choose, the Business Growth Indicators are the measure to ensure that you achieve the strategy you set out.

So just be aware of that for the next chapter in my book. The other thing to consider here is the horizontal alignment with strategy. You will see there are five boxes in strategy. These represent the five core strategic actions running through the company.

Every now and again, a company adds one or takes one away, but typically we always end up back with five and that’s the point. You can keep focused on five core strategic priorities at any one point in time.

If it starts going beyond that, you’re probably getting tactical, or you probably need multiple pages because you’ve got a more complex business.

The point is doing the big things all the time. So, the themes horizontally are typically all the major areas of the business.

Don’t forget that the definition of strategy is “a plan for obtaining a major result”.

So all of these strategic objectives here are major results, which means that they are the major elements of your business. So lock down your Time frames and Business Growth indicators!

Next week, I will touch on the 5 core strategic objectives in all businesses which are Sales, Marketing, Operations, Talent and Finance

Till then

P.S You can download a FREE Chapter 7 of my “Strategy on a Page” book with all the above diagrams to filled in -- below in the comments

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