Category Archives: Management

#296 Defining strategy

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In the next few posts, we’ll take a look at “strategy” and provide a few questions for you to ponder upon. This is by no means a comprehensive treatise on business strategy, for that you can go here or here or read this book, or sign up for a MBA program.

The point about strategy is to be thoughtful, and gain a competitive advantage via game changing choices and actions. Most of the questions relating to defining strategy are very simple, and a clear strategy will result in a simple answer. It is the simplification that is the hardest part of defining business strategy.

You may think if your strategy is hard to explain, it will be hard to copy. This is a myth. A lack of clarity is not a competitive advantage, it is a competitive disadvantage, because you will lose your execution capabilities as your teams waste time trying to figure out how to align to the strategy.

Your strategy is always on, meaning, you are making choices whether you know it or not. You cannot not have a strategy. Therefore, you might as well make it explicit, write it down, analyze it, communicate it, and plug gaps before you enter the execution phase.

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#294 A tipping point

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You or your co-worker start a new job or role. The initial enthusiasm soon subsides as you get into the groove and the daily grind begins to wear you down. If you have the right attitude and approach, you will enjoy your job or role and not let small things bog you down. (“Small” is all relative of course)

In your job or role, you will reach a “tipping point” where you will decide doing what you are doing has no meaning for you any more. You dust off your resume and start looking for a new gig. A key question is, what is your “tipping point” and can you predict it?

Here are some reasons why you or your co-worker will say, “No mas!”

  • You stopped learning.
  • You don’t growth in your career.
  • You don’t feel appreciated.
  • You can’t handle the toxic relationship(s) at work.
  • The business is flattening or declining.
  • You could not sell your ideas to your boss.

Identifying your “no mas” moment will give you insight into your motivations and stress points. Guard yourself against a premature “no mas” moment (in other words, don’t give up too soon or too easily). Guard your “no mas” moments so that you can maximize your stay in your current job/role. In other words, don’t do anything to create problems for yourself that will cause you to give up on what you currently do.

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