Actions Lead to Objectives - Or Do They?
I think there is something about seeing successful Kiwi businesses taking on the world that gives me a really warm, fuzzy and proud feeling and is one of the things that keeps me engaged in the tech & innovation space.
I was describing my passion to a friend recently as helping organisations get the right strategy, tools and techniques to enable them to successfully scale and take their brilliance to their world. Not quite a polished mission statement, but it's a good MVP mission for what drives me.
Over the last decade, I have been so privileged to work both with and in dozens of Kiwi tech and innovation companies and had valuable conversations with many, many more!
I bring a marketing and sales lens to my work, but never jump straight into solutions. My first question is always:
"What are you trying to achieve? What are your overall objectives for the business?"
This post focuses on how to deliver your vision and has been born from observing* practices within the numerous companies I have worked with.
*examples below are for illustration only- Please take them as such!
A Vision but No Plan
Many businesses have a vision or goal, but have not yet worked out how to deliver it, i.e. what their strategies are.
This is not something that only impacts early-stage companies; I have observed this with a number of established companies too. They are not failing, in fact, some are doing fabulously but with some good strategies, I believe they could be doing so much better. Perhaps the journey to success could also be faster or smoother.
It's not just my own observations - an article in the Harvard Business Review states that most strategies fail because they aren't actually strategies. The author identifies businesses as actually having goals, which they call "strategies" and then having no plan about how to implement them.
So, that is what this post is about.
What Does it Mean to be Strategic?
I think there is a lot of confusion over what "strategy" actually is, which is not totally surprising given the range of definitions there are!
I have seen many a social media plan labelled as a strategy, or consultants saying they are 'strategic' when they are actually focused on, for example, Facebook campaigns. They do it well, I'm just saying it is often not a strategy and I don't think it's helpful for you and your team to think it is.
The Cambridge Dictionary defines strategy as:
"A detailed plan for achieving success"
Some organisations have a really clear articulation of their vision and mission; many have some form of goal, or purpose, which might not be finessed, but is driving the business. Perhaps a surprising number, have nothing beyond the building of their particular platform or service.
For the purpose of this post, I am going to assume you have clarity about what you are doing.
What I really want to focus on today is the next layer down - the HOW to get there, ie the strategy.
There often seems to be a gap between where we are going and the activity we are doing.
Do you ever feel like there is a lot going on, but somehow you are not quite shifting the dial in the way you had hoped? Are you producing blog posts and Adwords campaigns, but you are not sure it is the right activity to drive the business?
We can all get drowned in being 'busy', but how much of what you are doing today is shifting the needle towards the business achieving its goal?
Where I have noticed some leaders struggling is in taking this goal and creating a real strategy (or strategies) to reach that goal. I notice the breakdown often occurs in one of 5 ways:
There is no breakdown of what the actions are to achieve a goal
Milestones and measures are missing
There is no process to review and iterate progress as needed
Individuals may not necessarily understand the part they play in achieving the business objective
The team is not necessarily focused on the 'important' stuff, but instead may be busy doing tasks, some of which appear "urgent", but which are not necessarily building towards the objective
Turn Challenges into Opportunities
Stop being on a roller coaster and let's try and get control and get where you want to be.
If you are saying "yes please", read on.
Let's turn these 5 challenges into opportunities.
1. Breakdown what actions achieve a goal
You want to be number one in New South Wales and your objective is to build your brand in the market to support this. This will mean different things to different businesses depending on where you are at today. Will you do it by raising awareness of your business through advertising? Or perhaps through developing thought-leadership positioning? Is it about sponsorship of key industry events? or by going hard into the key resellers?
OK - so you have decided you're developing your brand through a focus on thought-leadership - what are the broad steps you need to do this?
You don't have to go into the minutiae at this stage, but broad steps could be:
Bring together a team that includes the right skills
Identify what your content pillars are going to be - what are the themes & messages you're going to talk about
Research the right channels to use - will it be your own newsletter, or through speaking at others' events?
Research the competitive marketplace
Gain customer insights - what makes NSW different from, or the same as your current markets?
Allocate a budget
2. Identify milestones & measures
How do you know you are on target or if you are going to miss the mark?
It is OK to have a bit of a guesstimate at the beginning, your knowledge and expertise will change over time, but make sure you refine and learn as needed.
In recent times I have seen a number of organisations moving away from KPIs (key performance indicators) towards OKRs (Objectives and Key Results). KPIs tell you how well you are performing, while OKRs are a lot more outcome-focused, they tell you where you want to go and how you measure that you're getting there.
A useful explainer is here OKRs vs. KPIs - Here’s The Differences
Jim Collins' book Great by Choice talks about Scott & Amundsen's race to the South Pole. Amundsen won the race by 24 hours, which Collins put down to his ability to break down his goal of getting to the South Pole into daily chunks of 20-mile marches. His team did this consistently - every day - regardless of conditions. They were rested and they knew what they had to do. Scott meanwhile pushed his team to exhaustion when the weather was good and sat in his tent moaning about the weather when it was not. Collins likens this to organisations that set their objectives and consistently deliver against metrics, versus those with less discipline who are on a boom and bust cycle.
Having milestones in place is also great as you get to celebrate achieving the steps to success and this is good recognition for the team.
3. Have a process for reviews and planning
This links closely to point 2, but I have put it separately as it is an activity in its own right.
The cadence and structure will depend on the organisation, the strategy, the timeframe and so on. This is not about operational discussions e.g how many clicks we had on our website, or how many leads we converted, but is instead at a higher level and should be directly related to the strategic activities which relate to the goals and objectives of the organisation.
Be honest with yourselves as a team too - this is about learning, iterating and growing. It is sometimes helpful to have someone external to the team facilitating this and holding you to account.
Organisations that do well on this are the ones that focus on the stuff they can control, rather than look at externalities for what went wrong.
4. Take your team with you
Don't forget to communicate your vision and purpose to the team, but also talk about the strategies you are taking to get you there and importantly the part they play.
Apart from being easier to keep everyone on track and less distracted by "new shiny things", some people in your team will be driven by understanding the company vision and knowing the part they play. This is especially the case with Millennials (those born from 1981-1996) who make up half of the workforce.
Check-in with your team and see what they say when you ask them about the vision and the role they play. And not just your team, ask your leadership team and directors too. You may be surprised by the responses.
There are some of you who are really rocking this piece and some of you who might like to loop back and take everyone else with you on the journey.
5. Don't ask for MORE, focus on priorities
I don't need to tell you that we all have the same hours in the day, yet some people do seem to achieve more!
I am definitely on an ongoing journey with this one personally.
There might be a lot of activity going on and you and your team might be busy - but is everyone working on the right stuff?
Successful organisations are really clear about identifying the right things, knowing when to say NO to doing something and also when YES means a conversation about where it fits into the priorities and workload.
In Summary
I hope that has been a useful reminder.
In summary, don't leave your success to chance and don't get lost in the tactics first, without understanding how they will shift the dial in your business.
Instead, think about what your business goals and objectives are. Ask how marketing & sales can play a part in getting you there? What are the actions that will shift the dial?
Identify the strategies (the plans) and break them down into meaningful and effective steps to achieve. Review, measure & celebrate successes on the way.
Good luck!
