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Am I Working on the Right Things?
June 1, 2007 By: Ben Markens Paperboard PackagingDr. Steven Covey says, "Start with the end in mind. Start with what you're trying to accomplish."
Strategic management means designing strategy, organizing your organization to execute strategy, and then creating goals, objectives and measures to see whether you are making progress toward what you say is important. It almost always involves making decisions to do things differently to get better future results.
Some organizations don't need strategy. If you are happy with what you are doing today, then just keep doing it. If your company is as successful as you'd like it to be and you are accomplishing the things that you wish to accomplish, then don't change anything. Only consider implementing strategic management if you'd like to change the way things happen.
In his book, Good to Great, Jim Collins talks about disciplined people using disciplined thought and disciplined action to create change.
With many of the companies that we meet, it's not as if the people are undisciplined. They are unfocused. They spend very little time working on their businesses because they spend all their time working in their businesses.
Working on the business means first deciding what is important, then using the disciplined action to get there. It's a process of transformation and change. It's a way to make things different and better.
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Last month, I introduced the concept of mapping strategy, a method to deconstruct strategy into cause-and-effect, continuous improvement projects.
The exhibit above shows part of a map for operational excellence. As we go down the map, we ask "how," and as we go up we ask "why." How will we increase productivity? By improving throughput. How will we do that? With training and downtime reduction. Why are we optimizing layout? To reduce waste. Why are we doing that? To increase productivity.
This process allows all employees to focus on what needs to be done and what actions they can take to help the company achieve its goals. I have heard it said that people spend so much of their time trying to do things right that they never spend enough time considering whether they are doing the right things. The strategy map creates clarity and focus.
Ben Markens is president of The Markens Group Inc., a boutique consulting guiding business toward excellence. He also is director of the PPC Financial Executives Institute. He can be reached at 413-562-8495 or ben@markens.com . Sign up to hear his weekly audio tips about business at www.markens.com/tipoftheweek.php
