It’s easy to say ‘innovate’, ‘disrupt’, ‘find your blue ocean’, but where do you actually start and where do you look for opportunities?
I Can’t Hear Anything, It’s Too Noisy
No one ever said being in business was going to be easy but I think at times we can make it far too complex as well. There is so much noise in the marketplace and we are always being SHOUTED at from so many different directions as to which way we should go, what opportunities should be chased, and what technologies are now coming down the pipeline to wipe out our businesses.
With so much noise and distraction, how do you actually gain clarity, certainty and confidence in the course you chart for your business?
Where do you start, where do you look and how do you build this into a process, forming it into a corporate habit and then a corporate capability?
Going off topic for a moment, we just had a long weekend holiday in Melbourne, Australia. A friend of mine spent the three days on a silent retreat, where you wake up at 4am, have breakfast at 7am, lunch at 11am and no other meals for the day. There was no talking, no reading, no phones or devices and no connecting with other participants. Just silent meditation for the entire time. Can you begin to imagine, if you took your senior leadership team away on something like that, and then came together afterwards for your strategy workshop how much of an impact it would have on their participation and, more importantly, their contribution? Challenging but not such a silly idea.
Zooming As An Approach
The AFR’s Boss Magazine recently ran an interview by Agnes King with John Meacock, who is the Chief Strategy Officer, Asia Pacific and Australia, and also Vice Chair of its global board, for Deloitte. The question posed was, with half of Deloitte’s services to be automated in the next decade, is their business model sustainable? Pulling a few key lines from the article, Meacock said: ‘While companies are pouring resources into process and product improvement, it is not propelling them ahead of the competition because rivals are doing the same’. He adds, ‘You can’t be satisfied with incremental innovation, because none of your competitors are sitting idle’ and mused, ‘We [Deloitte] want to be ahead of the curve – but not too far ahead’.
Meacock went on to explain that Deloitte had fallen into the trap, a few years ago, of three-year planning cycles in response to world volatility but that it didn’t work. Now they adopt a six-year planning cycle providing a fixed general direction, complemented by an agile six-month agenda, which contains two or three short-term goals aligned with the big picture. To support them in this process they have adopted the ‘Zoom In, Zoom Out’ approach developed by Rosabeth Moss Kanter.
‘Zoom In, Zoom Out’ promotes a strategic approach by leaders whereby they are able to maintain a zoom out view of their market and the world to see the larger principles at play, but then also be able to zoom in when necessary. Zooming in allows you to bring the details into sharp focus. So whilst you have the bigger picture view you are also able to dive into detail when necessary. Balancing the two perspectives is the art, so that you do not get stuck looking through either lens.
I believe, in practice, to adopt a ‘zoom in, zoom out’ approach you need to have a clear sense of the boundaries of your bigger picture, what events you need to track, and when an event or opportunity may warrant diving into the detail. Without this context, the noise would still be too great.
Reducing The Noise
I believe the noise can be substantially reduced by crafting your strategy in a way that brings clarity to the path you intend to pursue.
This is achieved by:
- Establishing clearly the boundaries of your chosen market. These boundaries are not fixed and rigid but rather reflect your core focus. These boundaries are usually defined by such elements as:
- The purpose for which your business exists.
- The customer needs you seek to meet.
- The services and/or products delivered.
- Any targeted customer demographic.
- Pricing points.
- The value delivered.
- Intimately understanding your real customer need. It forms an element of the boundaries of your market but it must go far deeper. Intimately understanding your customer needs allows you to focus on, be aware of and look for opportunities to improve that value.
- Knowing clearly your competitive posture, that is, how you intend to take advantage of your strengths to out-compete anyone else in delivering greater value to your customers.
- Having a clear design of how your organisation functions in delivering its value. This is not the organisational structure but rather the way you have designed the processes, interactions and structure of your business to bring maximum impact on the value you seek to deliver to your customers.
- Identifying and tracking change and technology that is emerging in the market that may impact any the above criteria – boundaries, needs, competitive posture and organisational design.
When you have these criteria clearly mapped and understood by your team, you will be far more readily able to listen to those events and opportunities that are relevant to your business, customers and market. You will be able to substantially reduce the background noise and focus on those elements of real relevance and dive deep when appropriate.
Your landing position should be that every member of your leadership team can say:
‘I know my business, why we are here, why our customers keep coming back to us, why we outpace our competitors, and I know where to look to ensure we maintain our competitive posture and our unyielding success. There is no noise so loud as to distract me from success.’
Active Knowledge Questions:
- Do you have a clear detailed picture of what you do as a business and what is, therefore, important to you?
- And can you, therefore, with confidence, know what noises are important and which should be ignored?
Act Now:
Need to lift the leadership performance in your business? Learn how in C88 – Leadership Performance Guide and Journal.
How undefeatable is your business strategy? Consider Strategy Play – Crafting Undefeatable Business Strategies.
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All the best in the success of your business,
Richard Shrapnel
References:
The Killer Question by Agnes King, Boss Magazine, Australian Financial Review, February 2017, Vol. 18.
Zoom in, Zoom Out by Rosabeth Moss Kanter, Harvard Business Review, March 2011.
