Can You State Your Strategy Simply
“If I had more time, I would have written a shorter letter” is a quote variously attributed to many people from Mark Twain to Blaise Pascal. Despite the murky origins of the phrase, it captures well a trap that many leaders fall into as it relates to their “strategy”. When asked “can you state your strategy simply?” we most often get everything from blank stares to long, rambling paragraphs that are difficult to remember and understand.
First off, what is “strategy”?
This pervasive issue of not being concise as it comes to key questions about the business is compounded in this case by a further problem of a lack of agreement on what “strategy” even means! Is strategy the “vision” of the business, that is, where it’s going long term? Or is strategy the long term plan of how it will achieve that vision? It's really neither.
Our favorite definition of strategy
Michael Porter writes that “Strategy describes how a company creates a unique and valuable position through a set of differentiating actions”. From experience, we find that this is the most helpful definition of strategy. When working with clients, we help them articulate a “One Phrase Strategy” to succinctly capture their ‘strategy’.
Examples of One Phrase Strategies
Southwest Airlines - “Wheels Up”. Airlines have massive overhead costs related to those multi million dollar tin cans that can fly over 500 miles per hour at 30,000 feet. Utilizing the fixed costs of those airplanes is the key to making money for an airline, so why not focus everything you do as an organization into flying your planes as many times per day? Forget the rest - just ensure “wheels up” day in, day out, every plane.
IKEA - “Flat pack shipping”. This one can be frustrating as a consumer as anyone who has spent hours assembling an IKEA piece of furniture at home can testify! But if you are IKEA, why spend an inordinate amount of money shipping and storing air? Margins and inventory availability increase with all those pieces of furniture packed into as small a container as possible.
All companies need a One Phrase Strategy
The examples above are from multi-billion dollar companies. But we continue to see the massive benefit for entrepreneurial businesses of all sizes to engage in the deep thinking and succinct articulation of codifying their strategy in a simple and concise statement.
A One Phrase Strategy helps you …
Align your leadership team on the core driver of business performance.
Ensure the rest of your team are helping operationalize the strategy.
Focus on what really makes money, and deprioritize everything else.
About the Author
Tom Barrett is a Leadership Team Coach based in Nashville, and is a Certified Scaling Up Coach™, Certified Pinnacle Business Guide, & former Certified EOS Implementer™. He helps his clients build scalable businesses by clarifying their vision, simplifying their strategy and achieving their goals one quarter at a time.
