Among other necessities, strategy requires a handful of executives to meet at least once a week, not once a quarter. You must spend time working on the business, not just in it.
Core Values
Harnish sees these as the rules and boundaries that make up the company’s character. In times of confusion they can be a final should/ shouldn’t for employees to rely on to avoid operational issues or resolve them much quicker. The Harvard Business Review article “Building Your Company’s Vision” by James C. Collins and Jerry I. Porras offers examples of keywords. Using authentic stories or examples from within your own company can provide both explanation and evidence.
Core Purpose
According to Harnish, this is the “why?” This provides something for employees to funnel their enthusiasm into and enables them to provide you with more effort.
SWT (Strengths, Weaknesses, and Trends)
The strengths, weaknesses, and trends analysis is very similar to the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats analysis as the name suggests. Verne explains that this analysis focuses on more general trends that occur outside of the company’s industry, geography and other such factors.
7 Strata of Strategy
These are the seven important factors Verne Harnish mentions as being important to developing a strategy in his book “Scaling Up: How a Few Companies Make It…and Why the Rest Don’t”.
- What word(S) do you own in the minds of targeted customers?
- Who are your core customers, what three brand promises are you making them, and how do you know you’re keeping these promises?
- What is your Brand Promise Guarantee?
- What is your One-PHRASE Strategy that likely upsets customers but is key to making tons of money and blocking competition?
- What are the three to five activities that fit Harvard strategist Michael Porter’s definition of the essence of differentiation?
- What is your X-Factor – a 10 times to 100 times underlying advantage over the competition – that completely wipes out any and all rivals?
- What are your Profit per X (economic driver) and BHAG for the company?
Recommended Reading
- James C. Collins’ and Jerry I. Porras’ Harvard Business Article “Building Your Company’s Vision”