Last week, I taught you about CFA: Choice. Focus. Action.
The three movements of execution.
Strategy expressed.
Here’s the thing: there’s a series of decisions you need to make before you get to CFA.
Too many organizations jump right to action.
Motion feels like strategy. It’s not.
Then wonder why they’re drifting.
To make CFA work, you need to answer five questions.
The Strategy Stack
1. What does success look like?
How will you know you are a success when you get there?
A number? An event? Usually a combination. Tangible and intangible.
It will be clear enough that anyone can look at the situation and say “Yes. They’ve hit their mark.”
Many leaders lead with market share. Others with revenue. Some just say meaningless things like “Winning” or, my current favorite, “Competing.” (I’m a Tottenham supporter…give me a little leeway.)
You want a picture. Something to draw you along.
Numbers are easy.
Metrics.
You need vision.
Success looks like something. Describe it.
2. Who is the customer?
Not “the market.”
Not “everyone.”
These are common answers.
They are wrong because they are meaningless.
Who is the actual person? The one who picks you? Or, says “no.”
Avatars are copouts.
Astrology dressed up as data.
Put some real meat on the person:
- What is their title?
- What challenge are you solving for them?
- What does this person believe about themselves?
- About the issue they are struggling with.
If you can’t describe a person who fits your profile, you don’t know them well enough.
3. Why us?
This is where organizations get fuzzy.
They don’t answer the question.
They try to base their decision on what “the competition” is doing.
They fall into the feature trap:
- “We’ve been in business for 10 years.”
- “People are our number 1 priority.”
- Specs.
Those are table stakes. They aren’t reasons to choose you.
The real answer lives in the space between what you offer and what the customer really needs.
Put it another way:
“How is the customer better off than when you started working together?”
If everyone is saying something similar or making a similar promise, you’ve lost your way.
What’s the thing only you can do?
It may look like what others are doing. You’ve chosen something different. Focus on what really matters to the customer.
You’re different. Say it.
4. What resources do we need?
Time. Money. Attention. People.
Not just what you have, but what you need.
Too often, people say, “We will do the best with what we have.”
That’s a road directly to failure.
You must be realistic about what you need.
Why?
So, you can be realistic about the gap between what you have, what you need, and what you can realistically fill in between the two.
If you don’t have all the resources you need:
- What can you do with what you have?
- What can you do to get the resources you need?
- Is your focus going to be the same if you don’t have the resources you need?
These questions force you to be honest.
It’s hard work. But it’s the difference between success and guaranteed failure.
5. What actions will you take?
Simple.
What are you going to do?
Actions.
Verbs.
If it doesn’t show up on someone’s calendar…it’s a wish.
If it isn’t something you can do…it’s an aspiration, another way of saying a wish.
Stop hoping.
Start doing.
The Strategy Stack in Practice
These five questions are simple.
They work in order:
Success leads to the customer. The customer leads to why us. Why us leads to resources. Resources lead to action.
Skip one. Everything falls apart.
Too often people start with question five.
Action is progress.
They work backward, trying to invent a strategy out of thin air.
“If you build it, they will come.”
It’s a lie.
That’s not strategy. That’s reaction.
The Stack forces you to start at the beginning. To do the hard work of thinking. So that the hard work of doing is easier and more likely to be successful.
This week’s question:
Which one of these questions is the hardest for you to answer right now?
Not which one do you want to answer…what question are you avoiding?
That’s where your Strategic Drift begins.
The Strategy Stack doesn’t guarantee success.
It guarantees you are playing the right game.
Everything else is wasted motion.
Let me know…
Hit reply and tell me which question is hardest for you?
Dave