I am standing before all of you as, quite possibly, the last guy around who believed he would be speaking about the GREEN business opportunity, much less actually finding myself believing the validity of it …

I’ve been hanging out in beautiful British Columbia, Canada. If you haven’t been to Vancouver, Whistler or the Okanagan valley you should definitely check it out.

Beautiful Vancouver

Now I’ve been there so many times parts of it feel like a second home to me. The beautiful lakes, the pristine forests, unbelievable coast line and incredible awareness for the natural beauty that the province represents, are all not just marketing fluff, but culturally embedded reality. As an oil and gas country native, however, these qualities always seemed more like beneficial attributes to a playground than anything business related.

Well I heard a quote this week that I can’t shake, “The economy is a wholly owned subsidiary of the environment.” The quote is attributed to Herman Daly, the ecological economist and professor at the School of Public Policy of University of Maryland, College Park in the United States, and one of the individuals credited with the concept of uneconomic growth, or basically the concept of growth that inherently harms the environment in which the growth occurs. I’m going to spend some time looking at this GREEN principle  and the benefits that can be expected by applying this concept to your small business.

The impacts on the environment of massive economic growth are well documented, and I’ll save the debate on that for another post or for readers that want to wade into it with me. What I want to focus on is the basic GREEN principle of growing with careful planning so as to ensure that growth is not cancerous.

I’m sure many of you have had the experience of the client or customer who, when you landed the account or realized the repeat sale, was a client you were genuinely excited to have, until you started dealing with them …

The growth that is associated with that client begins to be a sore spot in your account list. You realize that for the amount they spend your actual cost is well and beyond the profitability they represent. You continue to serve them as they represent a client and, more importantly, they represent a public opinion of your service, products and of you!

Let’s explore the parallels with economic growth at the expense of the environment. As we continue to strip, waste and extort the planet of its lifeblood in the form of fossil fuels, nutrients and (this one is really starting to get my attention) WATER, we continue based on an argument that is void of a holistic view point. The mentality that we must continue to look for more sources or supply of these items, regardless of the expense, is a challenging idea at best. It is akin to the concept of growing your own personal accounts regardless of the profit, or lack there of, that they represent.

So what is the solution? To be GREEN would say look at it more globally and see the total cost of the equation.

1. Adjust the mentality of our usage to consider using less, albeit a higher quality, as opposed to simply finding more.

If you think about this concept as it relates to your business it can be summarized as:

have fewer, high quality relationships, products, services and accounts as opposed to continually looking for non profitable growth.

Definitely a smart idea.

One client that I can recall actually built a customer reduction strategy in order to spend more quality time with the highest value clients in their list. The result? A financial benefit of 35% increase while building deeper, more loyal relationships with their clients.

2. Base planning and day to day actions on data collected and analyzed from many sources so as to fully understand the impact.

All too often as small business people we jump in to a new product, service, market or joint venture without doing a really good job looking at it from all angles. It is easy to be too busy to do the research or to use our ‘gut’ to guide us. This will generally provide for a reactive and sometimes fruitful experience whereby the little details we missed seem to come out of no where and steal profit.

Having a system that asks you to look at the details a little more closely can only benefit the long-term prospects for success.

3. Invest heavily in research and development for solutions to tomorrow’s problems.

The green mentality is that we can forecast, with a certain degree of certainty, the problems that will be coming in the future. I’m still not 100% convinced that the answer to all of the environmental questions is panic and fear based change, but I have no problem agreeing that we have made some fundamental mistakes in how we manage our natural resources. This can be proven quite quickly by looking at the older cultures of the world and some of the basic adjustments they have been forced to make as it relates to consumption.

So in your business the simple question is:

What are you doing to look at tomorrow’s challenges and how are you investing today to overcome them?

A hint? It starts with taking the time out OF your business to work ON your business.

So how have these simple green principles turned me into a strong supporter of our need to look at how we’re doing things with our planet and do it better?

Because they are the same principles that STRiDE promotes for your business!

The bottom line is that if spend some time building a one-page plan for your business you’ll realize that the first thing you have to do is focus more clearly, this means putting a laser like concentration on your top product, service and clients.

Second, if you are building a plan for your business you have to have good data. How profitable are different parts of your business and where is the best place to play your business game?

Lastly, invest today with a vision for tomorrow. Be proactive in training, product development and other key expenditures so as to support a plan that is built to grow, but grow smart!

Look at the STRiDE One-Page process as a way to build some of these green principle into your business, and while you’re doing it think for a minute about how you could provide a more positive influence and impact on the beautiful world we only borrow while we’re here.

Here’s to finding your STRiDE this year!

Chris

I’ve been spending some good time reflecting lately,  on almost every level of business, partnerships, friendships, family and personally. I don’t know about you but I’m a big fan of finding soundtracks for those times in my life when a song better describes where I am than anything else. So today I’m sharing some very valid lessons for the day in Billy Joel’s You’re Only Human (Second Wind).

The business environment has taken it share of blows this year and whether you were an active planner or not, chances are really good you had to think on your feet, come up with some new ideas and dig deep to make some things happen. Chances are also very good that you felt some pain this year, maybe had to readjust expectations a little or traveled deep into the unknown. And, you may still be there.

So let’s dig into Bill’s lyrics for some ageless wisdom.

First, he makes us all feel as though we’re not alone in our worldly hurt as he let’s us know

“its all right, its ok, sometimes that’s what it takes, you’re only human you’re allowed to make your share of mistakes.”

I think this is something we have to remember. When things go bad or the environment around us seems to crumble, its very easy to bare all responsibility and carry the burden. And, in fact, I’d suggest that this sense of burden and accountability is an essential quality of lifting your situation to a new level. But let’s keep things in perspective.

We are not the first generation to see trouble, nor will we be the last. Our mistakes have been large but the future is ours to draft. Which leads to another critical line.

“you learn more from your accidents than anything that you could ever learn from school.”

If you take us back almost a year ago you’ll recall that many of the experts were commenting on the fact that the global recession is a scenario that business people and economists around the world have no academic point of reference for. It was unique and therefore, frightening. Well now that we’ve come through what many call the bottom and whether the signs of recovery are truly that or the bouncing ball of the new economic reality, we’ve learned some great lessons. The question is:

“How will you apply your personal lessons to the next chapter?”

Bill paints a picture of reality that all of us can relate to as we analyze our own impact from the last year,

“Just like a boxer in a title fight, you’ve got to walk in that ring all alone … you’re not the only one who’s made mistakes but they’re the only thing that you can truly call your own!“

Although we’ve all lived examples of how building out strong and proactive partnerships, alliances, friendships and business interests in order to not deal with the challenges of this year alone, we are all, ultimately accountable to ourselves to make it happen! So when push comes to shove, have you looked at this year and accepted the ultimate accountability for where you are and, more importantly, what are you doing about it?

So as we come around the corner for the last quarter of the year take some initiative to learn from the year and put those lessons to great use in your plan for the upcoming year.

Whether personally or in your business, use the tools that are available to take a critical eye to where you are and where you want to be. You will increase your probability of success in the back end of 2009 and into 2010 by leaps and bounds if you give yourself the time to look at the past twelve months and adjust accordingly.

STRiDE is a process that forces you to look strategically at your business (our at your life if you utilize the MySTRiDE program) and build a plan for success. You may have to adjust some of your thinking, look more closely at the playground you’re playing in and realize the rules have changed a little. You may have to focus your attentions more heavily on your RISK strategy than you have in the past. But bottom line is, take the time to build out your one-page plan and make it work this year!

Just remember,

“Don’t forget your second wind, sooner or later, you’ll feel that momentum kick in!“

Here’s to finding your STRiDE in the last part of 2009 and an even stronger 2010!

Chris

One of the biggest pitfalls of any strategic direction is the realization when you’re in the middle of it, that it might not be working.

The current economic scenario has caused many companies to reconsider their current strategic direction and adjust the course. The question we’re going to explore today is:

How much adjustment should you make to your direction and how do I avoid the dreaded knee jerk reaction?

The key to this question comes back to the design of strategy, the ongoing evaluation of results and the identification of risks that could feasibly trigger adjustments.

In previous posts I’ve spoken to the difference between designing strategy and simply building a plan, as well as the key questions that need to be asked when designing a strategy that builds accountability and action. The next step in this process is to be bound by measurable and accountable key numbers.

The use of key numbers takes the strategic and tactical elements out of the subjective and into the objective by making the results as unambiguous as possible. There is no question that strategy must be built with adequate flexibility in mind so as to make the necessary adjustments when the results aren’t in line with expectations. The key becomes what triggers the adjustment.

Too often, you will see management make adjustments that are seemingly based on reaction to the environment or to a common trend in their business vertical. But when analyzed a little closer, the best managed companies will make predesigned adjustments based on criteria that are understood and have built in accountability.

With a properly designed strategy there is a recognition that the environment within which the strategic direction is designed can change, and often will. When considering risks to a strategic design, questions of market, economy, suppliers, regulation, customer health, key people, financial certainty, cash flow, systems and competition are only some of the areas the organization must consider. When defining the key numbers that link accountability and action, it is critical to show how a variance in the number can be linked to the risk and an action triggered.

Let’s look at this in a story that may connect to your business:

Anyone who has followed the oil and gas sector over the last year is well versed on possible environmental changes to a company strategy. Simply put, the change from $125 per barrel oil to as low as the high $30’s and averaging out at around $50 per barrel will definitely impact any company who’s strategy (rightly) takes into account cash flow linked to market price.

On top of the price impact there was massive increases in supplies and service costs over the last few years that reduced profitability of drilling, shale gas impacted the North American market as a whole and the green movement put a target on the back of most producers.

It would be easy say that volatility was the only true constant if you didn’t look that deep.

The reality is that when designing a strong and executable strategy there are areas that you can build out that are minimally impacted by massive volatility and the areas that are impacted can be built with triggers in areas of risk, like market pricing, to adjust the strategy.

Areas in operations can use industry metrics and KPIs to drive to the key numbers that are important. If you’re an oil and gas producer maybe it’s the administrative cost per barrel or the operations cost per barrel. If you’re a restaurant maybe it’s the food cost per plat or salaries be seat. If you’re a manufacturing plant maybe it’s the measurement of downtime in the process or measurement of wasted materials. And in the IT and ecommerce space there are conversion rates.

The bottom line is that a great strategy has a set of key numbers that need to be set as targets regardless of outside influence – in STRiDE these numbers live in the Operations and Finance areas of the One Pager.

That doesn’t change the fact that Growth, as an area of strategy that is usually very susceptible to external impact, can take over an organization if things aren’t going as planned. This is why the key numbers for this area must address cash flow, revenue per head, revenue per day, product profitability and marketing success. If you are managing by the numbers and have predefined the possible risks and the triggers that would bring about a change in the strategy, it all becomes a function of staying on strategy.

Check out STRiDE as a tool to build a strong strategy for your home business, small business or consultancy – learn to manage by key numbers and the outcome can always be called success.

To finding your STRiDE.

All too often companies large and small have a problem with creating an environment that effectively has all members of the organization moving forward in a direction that can be described as “on the same page”. The reason is, in fact, quite simple.

There isn’t a same page for everyone to focus on!

The reality is many organizations build large, clumsy binders to define the strategic direction of the organization. Others believe that a budget is the strategic driver, some capture it in a collection of marketing plans, operational plans and spreadsheets across individual departments. And even more worrisome are the companies that don’t plan at all and achieve success or challenge based on the whims of the market!

If an organization wants to effectively get everyone on the same page as far as strategy, accountability and action is concerned, they must utilize a simple and clear process.

The strategy, accountability and action must be captured on a single page.

STRiDEstands for Strategy, Tactics, Roles and Responsibility, Innovation, Decisions and Evaluation. Capturing these details on One Page is the basic advantage that STRiDE has over the typical strategic planning process.

In order to build a strategy that the organization as a whole can get behind its important to ensure that the components flow from a long standing and foundational concept to something more focused on today!

The STRiDE Success process takes an organization through the critical components of:

• Single Value Statement
• Success Story
• Key Audience
• Dominant Market
• Success Themes
• Core Competencies
• Red Flags
• Financial Outlook
• 12 Month STRiDES in
  • Growth
  • Operations
  • Finance
  • People
  • Risk
• 90 Day Themes for Execution

This may seem like a lot to capture in a page, but by walking through the process and capturing it on the clear and concise STRiDE One Pager you will have a tool that the entire organization can focus on and execute together.

The areas of STRiDE that are foundational are; the value statement, Success Story and Themes as well as the Dominant Market. Utilizing some of the recommended practices by authors like Jim Collins and Oren Harari, STRiDE encourages values, passion and precision in defining the pats of your organization that should live forever.

The areas of STRiDE that define the shorter term (think 5 years) are; the Key Audience, Core Competencies and Red Flags. STRiDE captures ideas from Brian Tracy, Les Hewitt and Jack Canfield to define how defining these areas with precision will enable a company to focus on the areas that will drive success, while avoiding the areas where a company can end up in a tail spin.

Lastly, leveraging the concepts of Verne Harnishand some pure experience with clients, STRiDE focuses the actions of the next 12 months in a well rounded cross section of the business. Led by defining Growth, but providing ample support in the areas of Operations, Finance, People and Risk provides a list of execution priorities that will drive a high powered and accountable organization.

To close, the key to getting the team on One-Page is to design it that way. Making the strategy over complex or defined in such silos as you may as well be running a number of different companies leads to consistent misalignment and complications.

Check out STRiDE and see how this simple one-page process can assist your organization today!

Traditional planning asks, “What is most likely to happen?” Planning for uncertainty asks, instead, “What has already happened that will create the future?”

- Peter Drucker

It’s difficult to argue Peter Drucker as the father of all things great in the area of management. His wisdom from 1992 is incredibly applicable today. In short his comment was simply this:

 Planning on probabilities in changing times is futile as the unique events that constitute changing times have no probability.

 So where does it leave the small and medium business person as we ride the economic, political and regulatory roller coaster that is currently defining the business climate? Let’s look more closely at this question …

 By following Drucker’s wisdom, we can ask what has already happened that will create the future? So let’s look critically at what has happened?

•  Capital has been all but frozen in the small and medium business space – but what has already happened is the SBA implementing 90% guarantees and working with Treasury and the $15 Billion to get capital flowing again.
• Energy prices, specifically oil, have dropped to just over 30% of the high from last July – but has already happened is that energy companies have stopped drilling, demand has reduced globally but there are signs of a supply/demand gap coming that could spike prices again.
• Job losses in the US are over 3.5 Million over the last two quarters – but what has already happened is that most people realize that there is little security anywhere and are now considering starting a home based or small business.
• Traditional marketing has declined as organizations look at the best return on marketing dollars – but what has already happened is that social networking and online based technologies are creating a buzz that can not be matched as far as marketing is concerned, and people are applying this to small business, large business and non-profits.

Now this is just a small sample of some of the things that have already happened that will create the future. The question is, how are you designing your future to take advantage of these possibilities?

Are you actively ensuring that your plan is up to date, highly focused and the numbers are working? This is critical in ensuring that you can obtain capital for those bigger projects like expansion or new research when needed.

Are you looking vertically at industries that are impacted by either the capital crunch, the energy crunch or the housing crunch to find opportunity? Every issue is looking for bold solutions, and yours may just be the next big thing!

Are you building better plans and designing better systems for your small business? Competition will increase in the small business space and without great plans and better systems you are likely to become a statistic.

Have you diversified your marketing mix? Are you embracing the new and cutting edge opportunities that Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook and others present small and medium sized businesses to truly craft and monitor a genuine message for their key audience?

 If you have gaps in the answers to these questions you should check out the STRiDE One-pager and the associated STRiDE Success program for your small or medium sized business. Getting the answers and designing the future to these questions and others, in a clear and concise one-pager, delivers the strategy, accountability and action you need to avoid the uncertainty and capture the opportunity.

“The difference between a Designer and Developer … is the difference between shooting a bullet and throwing it.”

- Scott Hanselman

Close your eyes at the end of this sentence and visualize the word PLAN.

How did that go for you?

Chances are you experienced a touch of anxiety, maybe visualized a sterile room, with white boards everywhere and IBM like men in suits sitting around. If you think in music it was a movie track from the early 80’s say Chariots of Fire. This is the kind of association most of us make with the word “PLAN”.

Now, to try something different, close your eyes again and think of the word DESIGN.

The thoughts of brilliant colors, funky architecture and new and exciting concepts most likely filled your mind. The music is upbeat and modern like The Exterminator Beat from the Wanted Soundtrack or maybe some smooth jazz like Nemesis by Aaron Parks. The artistic mind associates with the word design, and its fun to dream in color.

So the question I have to ask, is that if you’re starting, building or running a small or medium sized company wouldn’t you want your future to be colourful, fun and successful?

If the answer is yes, then continue reading, because this a strategy you don’t want to miss.

In my last post I pushed you to look at your organization and ask the hard questions. Questions like:

What customers should I fire?

What 20% of employees are doing 80% of the valuable work?

Are you dealing with partners or vendors?

Are you trying to please everyone?

Do you understand your cash flow?

Have you peeked under the kimono lately? (Don`t do this one in public)

The answers to these questions are the foundation for the strategic design process. This foundation is critical to eliminating the 3 ring binder paper weight that most strategic plans become. The big question is, however, what to do about it?

I like design, I like color and I like making something simple enough so that everyone can participate in both the design, and more importantly, the execution of results!

To understand the difference between design and planning I’ll compare the 3 major starting points of each:

Planning:

            Vision

            Mission

            Values

Design:

            Purpose

            A Story

            Multiple Points of View

In today’s world, with ground breaking marketing and networking technology (are you on Twitter yet), a necessity to stay in front of the competition, opportunity to be truly global from your lap top and product and service offerings being judged more by the user experience than by the price of the ad, wouldn’t you rather be a designer of the future? Ask these questions:

What do we stand for as an organization?

What does good really look like in five years?

Who cares and who matters about our existence?

What do they have to say?

What themes show up that we can count on to build our future?

What are we going to do about it?

The STRiDE One-Page Design process puts Purpose, the Success Story and a concept called KAPOV front and center to make your design experience one filled with creativity, fun, color and amazing results!

If you’re new to designing your organizational future check out our one-pager, you’ll like it. If you’re already a seasoned planner in the organization, try a design approach and open the gates for the future!

Technorati Tags: Chris Lewis, Strategic Design, Stride, What Is Strategy

“However beautiful the strategy, you should occasionally look at the results.”

- Winston Churchill

You know, Churchill was a well known strategist, but the quote above really says it all. The bottom line in any strategy is the result, plain and simple. 

With large financial sector bonuses, a roller coaster stock market and the word ’stimulus’ becoming kitchen table talk, it begs the question – What Is Strategy?

As a word it is actually very easy to define – It’s a plan.

Simple, right?

Not really, defining your strategy must take into account a number of elements to turn it from a “beautiful” paper based plan into something that actually drives results! If you believe the news, it really doesn’t matter what our ’strategy’ or plan is, we’re all in deep, deep trouble. I don’t believe it. So, let’s look at this loaded concept a little more closely and have the guts to ask the hard questions.

Consider this, I thought strategy was simple enough when planning a great family vacation. To be successful you need only plan where we’re going, ensure we have good accommodations, an idea of what to do while we’re there and sufficient funds to make it happen. Easy.

But as my own experience taking my family to sunny Corpus Christi, TX will demonstrate, it’s not always that easy.

What if the condo you booked misrepresented itself? What if the pool at the location is closed for the two weeks you’re there? What if you didn’t do the research to find out that the Gulf actually has 49 species of shark and stinging jellyfish … need I say more? It ended up being a great vacation, but not without some serious stress and shooting from the hip to make things work.

If the strategy behind a simple family vacation can pose these kind of issues, building a strategy that positions your organization for success is much more complex. Or is it?

Business people everywhere have been brainwashed to building strategic plans that, when completed, are capable of being a Harvard text book! 300-400 pages of intensive theory. But that’s not the worst part.

These large strategic binders typically get a spot on the shelf beside all of the other plans that never get executed, making them an exercise in time wasting and executive self-stroking. So how to you overcome this?

To start, keep it simple! Ask the questions that matter, especially the hard ones. Then put them in a format that makes execution the priority.

 What is really happening, today?

Ask the questions that look realistically at where the company is today and what has already happened around it that will define the future. Many of these insights are available for anyone willing to look critically at what’s going on around you.

• What is really happening with my customers? Which ones can I count on and which ones should I fire? Not all business is good business.
• What is happening with my employees? Who will carry us to the next level and who is riding the coat tails? Think the 80/20 rule – 80% of the work from 20% of the team.
• What is happening with our suppliers? Are they strategic partners or profit taking vendors? Build a fortress of partners around you.
• What is the response to my products or services? Have we build the best possible offer in our market or diluted ourselves trying to be everything to everyone?
• What is our current financial reality? Are we managing cash flow with absolute certainty?
• What other risks are out there that we need to look closer at to see? Open the kimono and see the dirty little secrets that can kill the plan.

The answers to these questions will start to give you foundation and let you ask the next questions with a base of knowledge in what your current reality is.

Starting with a great foundation allows you to bring it all together with confidence and build the plan that enables the first steps to get done, today. This is the big difference between the big strategic binder and the plan that actually delivers results!

I like the one-page plan concept, because the bottom line is, when its more complex then a page how many people actually do it? You have to have the guts to put down the actual actions and the accountability to make it happen. This means detail. This means names of people who are responsible. And, it means that the plan becomes a part of you’re everyday.

 So let me ask you, what do you have in place for your organization? Let me know with comments to this post and I’ll work through the planning process in the next post.

STRIDE is a company committed to providing outstanding solutions for the dynamic era companies do business in. If your organization needs better alignment in strategic direction, corporate and employee focus, time pressure and work/life balance—STRIDE has a solution for your dynamic era!