This describes the third of five essential executive onboarding tools, Enabling resources
- Converging assimilation – New leader assimilation session
- Inspiring direction – Imperative mission and vision
- Enabling resources – Core focus and strategy
- Empowering authority – BRAVE culture
- Credible accountability – Milestone management
Enabling Resources – Imperative strategy
Strategy should precede execution and guide the allocation of resources required for execution. This is because 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. Thus, there are wrong resources, places, ways and times. You can’t make something a priority without making other things less of a priority and choosing to allocate financial, information, technical or operational, people, and time resources differentially to be:
- Predominant – top 1%
- Superior – top 10%
- Strong – top 25%
- Above average/competitive – top 50%
- Good enough/scaled – below average
- Outsource or not do at all
Let’s dig into that.
Michael Porter taught us that strategy is about choosing what not to do. My partner Harry Kangis took it one step further and said “Choosing not to do something that’s a bad idea is easy. The hard choice is choosing not to do something that’s a good idea – for someone else.”
To put a finer point on it, Porter suggests all design, produce, sell, deliver, and service.
The most effective organizations choose one core focus and let that guide their other choices.
For example,
Apple wins with predominant design and technologic innovation. Its stores are a marketing vehicle.
Coke wins with a predominant production system, based on its physical assets, partnered with its bottlers’ predominant distribution system.
Walmart wins with a predominant product-supply/delivery infrastructure.
Ritz-Carleton wins with predominant people-based service/guest experience.
Do you see it? For Apple to win on design, they have to invest in innovation. For Coke to win on production, they have to invest in their plants. For Walmart to win on delivery, they have to invest in their product-supply infrastructure. And the Ritz-Carleton has to invest in its people as “Ladies and gentlemen serving ladies and gentlemen.”
Note sales and marketing is not part of this equation. Everyone has to invest in sales and marketing in one way or another. While you certainly need sales and marketing strategies, those come one step down from your overall focus and strategy.
Implications for you
All this flows from your mission and vision – why you exist and what success looks like. Start by co-creating that with your leadership team.
Next comes your core focus. Figure out the heart of how you’re going to win together.
With those in place, prioritize the different things you might do, looking carefully at the different returns on investment to be predominant or superior and so on down the line. Expect to end up investing more in the areas most aligned with your core focus and less in other areas.
Follow this link to request a free copy of our Imperative Workshop tool.
Then it’s time to get more granular about the specific resources you’ll be investing in terms of finance, information, operations/technical, people, and time.
Financial resources include capital investment that will go on the balance sheet and operating investments. Ultimately, what matters is cash flow. There are many ways for companies to go broke including growing so fast that their working capital eats all their cash or their interest payments growth outpace their EBITDA growth.
Information resources include data, systems, support. We’re living in the midst of an information revolution. Keeping up with the opportunities created by big data and artificial intelligence is going to be just as important as keeping up with changes in your cash flows.
Operations/technical resources include material, equipment/tools/machines, infrastructure, space, and utilities. These are tools to help you and your people get things done.
People/human resources are essential to help obtain input, to support and help think, to help implement, what you do no matter what your core focus is. Just remember that scope is a function of resources and time. Doing more with less only works if the “less” of one resource is offset by an increase in other resource or more time.
Time can’t be created. But it can be allocated. Asking anyone to do more needs to be accompanied by the deferral or elimination of other responsibilities.
John Hall
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