Business Express News Feature: “What’s Your Story?”
“A company without a story is usually a company without a strategy.”
—Ben Horowitz, entrepreneur, and investor
To Business leaders reading this piece today, guess what: “Your Strategy is Your Story”, “Your Strategy is Your Journey”.
But how do you tell the story? How do you sell that company story – to all
stakeholders involved?
How do you get these stakeholders to LIVE it, BELIEVE in it and be able to tell
their story in the context of the company’s story?
Or more specifically - What’s their role in this story on this journey?
Richard Rumelt’s book Good Strategy/ Bad Strategy claims that the kernel of a good strategy contains three elements:
1. A diagnosis of the challenge,
2. A guiding policy, and
3. Coherent action.
Or simply put—the 5 W’s and H:
WHAT is the problem, what are we gonna do about it (the ‘HOW’), why,
where and when do we start?
I like to use: “Where we are, where we want to go and how are we going to get there?” NOW it becomes a story with a narrative.
When I ask my five-year-old what stories she likes most, she immediately goes Goldilocks, Hansel and Gretel etc. always the ones with ‘journeys’.
Some of the best stories are journeys:
JRRTolkein’s The Hobbit for the younger ones of us and L Frank Baum’s The Wonderful Wizard of Oz and Homer’s Odyssey for us older ones.
So, if you had to use a “strategic journey model” you would ensure that you:
1. Include the right stakeholders in the strategic planning process—preferably a cross-functional, multi-level team with subject matter experts for the varying technical/ support functions of the organisation.
2. Determine the jeopardy/ dilemma—that is, the Business Problem. What is at stake, and what happens if we don’t make it as an organisation?
And there you have the groundwork for your “Strategy Story”. That brings me to Lewis O’ Caroll’s Alice in Wonderland and the scene with Alice and the Cheshire cat—cheeky little fella that one…
Building business strategy in the Let’s re-enact that scene but let’s place it in a business setting and call it the (Alice Leadership team—ALT) at Wonderland Co) and the (Cheshire Cat Consultancy). And the conversation goes a little like this:
ALT: Would you tell us, please, which way we ought to go from here?
CCC: Well, that depends a good deal on WHERE you want to get to.
ALT: We don’t much care where the important thing is working hard and the bottom line.
CCC: Then it doesn’t much matter which operational plans or initiatives you go with.
ALT interjects: Look, so long as we deliver
CCC: Oh, you’re sure to do that, if only you work long enough and have enough items to execute on your action plan.”
Who here feels like you work at Wonderland Co and you’re a member of the Alice Leadership Team in your organisation?—it’s a rhetorical question.
Jeff Bezos and Amazon, Elon Musk and Tesla, designer brand Hermes with bags that cost a million a pop and more. What’s their strategies?
What do our successful organisations in the region do on the strategic planning front?
Well enough of story time. I am Nichelle Granderson the host of the 2022 Annual Caribbean Strategy Summit (CSS) that was held this month October 13, 2022.
I am the chair of the Caribbean Strategy Association (CSA), Founder of Strategy Plus (S+) Consulting, the authorised Global Partner of the
Balanced Scorecard Institute for the Caribbean Region, and our S+ Story is:
• Vision: To illuminate the strategic path of the Caribbean Business Municipals, with the ultimate goal of transforming the Caribbean economy and what employees, customers and our broader Caribbean communities expect of our regional Companies. Strategically influencing the regional/ global impact of Caribbean business and the ways it intersects with our public and personal lives.
• Mission: To empower Caribbean businesses through strategic action and celebrating strategy success stories about the Caribbean companies, strategic thought leaders and ideas that shape the Caribbean and by extension the world, in hopes of doing our part to improve the regional
future of business.
•Key Strategic Goals:
• Improve regional/ global impact of Caribbean business and its stakeholders
• Enable the shaping our Caribbean collective future through effective strategic planning
• Increase the competence in Strategic Planning of our Caribbean Leaders
At the above mentioned Summit we had the opportunity to hear from Howard Rohm the multi award-winning President and Founder of the Balanced Scorecard Institute (BSI) a part of the Strategy Management Group as well as other international BSI experts.
Howard is the author of the proprietary Balanced Scorecard 9 Steps to Success Framework™.
Attendees also heard ‘Caribbean Strategy Stories’ from our nine esteemed panellists hailing from varying industries and parts of the region.
Industry leaders and functional strategists who have effectively crafted and executed successful strategies.
They shared the strategy tools, methodologies, processes, policies that have
worked for their respective organisations.
If you missed this one, be sure to register for CSS 2023!
The intent of the Summit was not a talk shop, it was not a networking event or a consultancy discovery event. Moreover, it was not a feel-good event or an event to hear about what we’re not doing well in the Caribbean Region—we already know that.
This Summit delivered real strategy tools, tools that work. It unboxed the ever-elusive STRATEGY and strategic planning. And more importantly what happens after the McKinseys and the Balanced Scorecard Institutes of the consulting world leave your organisations.
How do you execute, roll out, communicate, evaluate and sustain your organisation’s strategy.
The aim of Strategy Plus (S+), the CSA and the CSS by extension is to improve
our Caribbean organisations and our efficiencies for the ultimate purpose of revenue generation and profit—THAT’S WHAT WE’RE ALL HERE FOR. Feel-good doesn’t pay the bills.
As leaders we want all of our stakeholders to benefit: the employees, the
company, the shareholders, the board; and what about the wider community and our respective nations?
But What Does Success Look Like?
Caribbean Leaders, the landscape has changed and so does the game plan, what are we planning to do differently as individual people, as an organisation, as a country. Let us not continue to be reactive.
Effective, sustainable strategy gives you the opportunity to be proactive and be able to deal with ALMOST not ALL the environmental curveballs that this economy and life throws us—the Pandemic being a powerful indicator.
Competence in Strategy and strategic planning are not as commonplace as
some make it seem. There are in fact local, regional and even international leaders who still struggle with this complex and abstract field of study.
Technically strong/ sound technical leaders and senior managers but poor
strategic thinking. This I am sure you have experienced in the crafting and execution of your company’s strategy.
So, do we just attach the words:
STRATEGY, DIGITAL and AI to everything because it’s trending and it makes us sound strategic?!
In other cases, there are business Leaders who have actually has some exposure to strategic planning, but there is no set methodology, tools or structure that are employed. And operational plans/ action plans have been the outcome of these annual strategic retreats/ workshops.
However, these are not enough for a robust and or sustainable strategy.
Therefore, our ultimate purpose is to sensitise Leaders and Senior Managers locally and, in the region about effective strategic planning and provide strategic insights and tools that can assist with sustainable strategy which translates into improved efficiencies, productivity and ultimately profitability…
“Building Business Strategy in the Caribbean” - Business Express Feature Article October 26, 2022)
For more on the Annual Caribbean Strategy Summit, Strategy Plus Consulting Business Solutions or Training Programmes click:
2022 Annual Caribbean Strategy Summit (CSS) — Strategy Plus Consulting