You can get a read on almost any business situation by asking people to tell you about 1) the key leverage points and 2) the business issues.
Some of you will recognize these as the two summary points in a SWOT analysis, leading into the basic strategic questions of 1) Where to play? And 2) How to win? And well-done SWOTs flow from the 6Cs.
Let’s unpack that, moving from 6Cs to SWOT to strategy.
6Cs Framework
The 6Cs is a framework for assessing a situation across Customers, Collaborators, Culture, Capabilities, Competitors, and Conditions. Here’s a high-level summary. Click here for a free copy of a full 6Cs tool.
- Customers: First line, customer chain, end users, influencers
- Collaborators: Suppliers, business allies, partners, government/community leaders
- Culture: Behaviors, relationships, attitudes, values, environment
- Capabilities: Human, operational, financial, technical, key assets
- Competitors: Direct, indirect, potential
- Conditions: Political/government/regulatory/legal, economic, social/demographic/health, technological, environment/climate
SWOT
The 6Cs feed into a SWOT analysis across Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats. Strengths and weaknesses are internal and flow from culture and capabilities. Opportunities and threats are external and flow from customers, collaborators, competitors, and conditions.
Strengths are internal resources and capabilities that give the organization advantages.
Weaknesses are internal gaps in resources and capabilities that make the organization vulnerable.
Opportunities are things happening in the world outside the organization that should make it easier for the organization to succeed. People often get this wrong, putting in ideas here around what the organization might do. Don’t do that yet. Follow the process and keep this section focused on things happening outside the organization.
Threats are things happening in the world outside the organization that make it more difficult for the organization to sustain or succeed. Remember to keep this focused on external threats.
These feed into the two key questions about key leverage points and business issues:
Key leverage points are the internal strengths that can be brought to bear to take advantage of external opportunities. These are the corridors of ways to win. For example, if you have a strong beverage distribution system and the public water supply is contaminated, you could leverage your system to deliver safe bottled water to people.
Business issues are the areas of internal weakness that are particularly vulnerable to external threats. Fixing these is a way to avoid losing. If you have only marginally acceptable safety standards in your plants and there is pending legislation to increase legal safety standards well beyond those that you currently meet, that is a potential issue.
Click here for a free copy of a full SWOT tool.
Strategy
Strategy is about the creation and allocation of the right resources to the right place in the right way at the right time over time. At one level, the core questions are where to play and how to win (or not lose.) These flow directly from the key leverage points and business issues.
Remember that actions follow choices/decisions based on a strategy/framework/approach/guiding principles (how) to deliver a mission/objective/goal (what) in order to achieve a purpose/intent (why).
A thorough strategic business planning process might include:
- Set or reconfirm the aspirational destination/ambition
- Assess the current reality (per 6Cs/SWOT and profit pools) and develop possible future scenarios
- Generate strategic options to bridge gaps between reality and aspiration
- Evaluate strategic options under different scenarios and make choices
- Develop plans
- Implement. Act. Track. Assess. Adjust/improve. Repeat.
Click here for a free copy of a full Strategic Business Planning tool.
Using the two most important questions
The suggestion is not that you should replace any of these more thorough analyses or planning exercises with the two questions. The two questions are just the tip of the iceberg. It’s almost always better to dig into others’ thinking to understand why they reached the conclusions they did and what they see as the implications of those conclusions.
What the two questions can do is start conversations so others know where you’re helping them go and follow up on previous conversations. They are, indeed, the two most important questions in almost any business situation. But they don’t stand alone.
If you use them on a regular basis, people will know they’re coming and think about them in advance. Eventually, they’ll think about them even when you’re not around. If enough people in your organization are taking advantage of your key leverage points and addressing your business issues, your odds of success increase dramatically.
