Strategic
Game Changers
Effectively deal with issues that will make a significant difference to your success.
Are you finding it difficult to get agreement on how to achieve the outcomes you’re after? Is it taking too long to make critical decisions? Do you find team members are not fully engaged or willing to go that extra mile to execute your strategy?
​
Don’t let issues like these undermine your ability to succeed and gain the competitive advantage that could be yours.
​
We have the tools and know-how to help your teams unite to rapidly solve problems, generate alternatives, develop strategies, activate plans, and implement solutions. Our Strategic Game Changers were developed to effectively deal with issues that will make a difference to your success.
​
Here are 6 Strategic Game Changers that our clients have found useful. Click for more information.
-
We need a strategy but can’t commit to an extensive planning process.
-
We struggle to get meaningful support for executing our strategy.
-
We have difficulty evaluating alternatives, setting priorities, and staying focused.
-
We find it challenging to form cross-functional teams that actually work.
-
We don't have a system for updating our strategy to factor in major changes.
-
We are challenged to make mission-critical decisions in a timely fashion.
We need a strategy but can’t commit to an extensive planning process.
Are you concerned about the time and cost involved in strategic planning? Do you want to engage your team in a conversation about your organization's future and what it will take to get there? Have you got an essential project that would benefit from a thoughtful strategy?
​
Using our Strategic Launchpad™, your strategic thinking will be translated into decisive actions focused on achieving specific goals. In just a few weeks you will:
​
-
establish the priorities on which to focus your team,
-
visualize what success will look like next year or 3 or so years down the road,
-
design the initiatives that will close gaps and achieve your objectives,
-
build a living action plan designed to deal with identifiable vulnerabilities and build essential capabilities, and
-
activate a process for updating your action plan on an ongoing basis.
​
Strategic Launchpad™ is a fast, effective, and proven way of achieving longer-term success and building strategic action into your team’s everyday work schedules, all without taking away from tasks that must be completed on a day-to-day basis. And at less cost and time than that required by more traditional approaches to strategic planning.
We struggle to get meaningful support for executing our strategy.
Strategy execution fails when employees prioritize day-to-day responsibilities over those involved in executing a strategy, feel they have too much on their plate, or receive no recognition for the effort they invest in a special project.
We are experienced in identifying the roadblocks that are getting in the way of executing your strategy and working with your team to implement solutions. Very often this involves a concerted effort to gain support for your essential strategy by ensuring that your people:
​
-
come together as a team with a clear sense of purpose,
-
have workloads adjusted for the extra effort strategy execution requires,
-
agree on shared goals and meaningful success metrics, and
-
collaborate in cross-functional teams to achieve the desired outcomes.
We have difficulty evaluating alternatives, setting priorities, and staying focused.
Does it feel like everything is a priority? Is your team overloaded with no sense of focus? Are you having a hard time resolving conflicting views of how to deal with strategy execution when priorities are not clear, and your team doesn’t know what to do or how to sequence projects.
We will work with you and your team to prioritize tasks and ensure that each team member understands the focus and how they can contribute. The methods that we use will make the most of this Game Changer providing your team members with:
​
-
clear priorities for upcoming quarters,
-
clarity around where to focus, when, and what to set aside, and
-
guidance on sequencing tasks and initiatives that compete for attention.
We find it challenging
to form cross-functional teams
that actually work.
Are you having a hard time getting employees from different parts of your organization to effectively collaborate with each another?
Are team members finding it difficult to allocate sufficient time to the project?
Are employees continually being distracted by ‘promising’ projects that go nowhere?
Following a thorough assessment of the situation you are facing, we will work with you to:
​
-
create a team charter that's signed off by everyone involved,
-
ensure each team member is clear on their responsibilities and the work they are expected to do,
-
identify obstacles that could derail execution and propose workarounds where appropriate, and
-
celebrate successes with recognition and rewards
We don't have a system for updating our strategy to factor in major changes.
Join the club! In our experience, many organizations are under the impression that once a strategy has been put to bed that's it until the next planning cycle.
​
The problem is, many of the assumptions on which the strategy was based will not hold true next year or a few years down the line. The world changes. And, if the past few years are any guide, it's changing at an ever-increasing rate.
A strategy is best looked at as a living document. As changes in your business environment can have a big impact on the initiatives you put in place, we recommend, at a minimum, an annual update.
​
We'll work with you to set up a system for monitoring your environment, and evaluating the assumptions on which your strategy was based. Very often this involves:
-
quarterly reviews of your progress in executing the initiatives and projects outlined in your plan,
-
the identification of major changes in your market, competition, and business environment that have impacted or are likely to impact your ability to achieve the objectives set out in your plan,
-
an assessment of the likely impact of these changes on your business, and
-
a facilitated workshop to agree on changes to your strategy and plan of execution.
We are challenged to make mission-critical decisions in a timely fashion.
The inability to make sound decisions quickly can mean the difference between success and a so-so outcome... between being able to take advantage of a solid opportunity or watching it pass by.
We will work with your team to formulate an approach that can be applied whenever an important decision has to be made. Specifically, we will propose a process to:
​
-
evaluate alternatives and decide on the most appropriate course of action,
-
instill the sense of urgency that key decisions demand, and
-
navigate complex situations while remaining focused on the desired outcome.
Isn't it time that you benefited from the synergy that's possible when all your people and teams are working well together?
Connect with us to find out how Strategic Directions can help you take advantage of these Game Changers.