Upside Downturn

It was only when I went to a workshop on Strategy and Risk last week that I realised: I didn’t have a strategy.

I have values – the moral framework that I take with me into the work I do and the connections I have with people – and I have goals – things I want to achieve within the world of work. But Do It Properly didn’t have a strategy. The guy leading the course was calle d John Hector and he defined this as a list of actions to take, a game plan, a vision, a unifying definition.

I suppose I always confused it with something along the lines of ‘mission statment’ (in that I’d really rather not spend the time producing something that looked like the other mission statements that I’ve seen!) but the course made me see what an essential exercise it is. John made it very simple both in terms of the value of the process and the way to go about it:

- Why did I start my business?

- What do my customers want now?

- What will they want in the future?

- Am I where I want to be?

- Where is the market for my product/service heading?

In answering those questions it becomes simpler to have a focused statement that can act as your companies strategy.

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andy planning, strategy