34 min
Book Chapter - Creating Your Winning Strategies (Issue #375) Invincible Career - Claim your power and regain your freedom
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- Careers
A flawlessly executed plan will fail if the overarching strategy is flawed.
Let me use a hypothetical situation with a cafe named “Beanville” as an example. Beanville’s strategy to win in a competitive marketplace was to offer the lowest price option to customers. So, Beanville created a plan to acquire, create, and sell the lowest-priced coffee products in town. That plan included all the details required to keep costs down:
* Low-cost commercial real estate
* Sourcing the cheapest coffee beans
* Aggressively negotiating with suppliers
* Low production costs
* Minimum wage employees
* Low-cost packaging
* Pricing and sales strategies
Unfortunately, Beanville’s core strategy was flawed. They discovered that customers in town weren’t so cost-conscious that they were willing to sacrifice the quality of their coffee drinks to save a little money. So, Beanville lost to its competitors, who delivered a better product. Even though they flawlessly executed the plans to support their lowest-price strategy, they still failed. This is why choosing the right strategy matters so much and why it must happen before you go into planning mode.
So, let’s take the time to create a winning strategy that will help you achieve your goals. Developing the right strategy must come before making the appropriate plans to support it.
Invincible Career® is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.
Strategy vs. Plan
People often confuse creating a strategy with making a plan. As Chris Kolenda succinctly points out, here are three critical differences between strategies and plans:
* A strategy faces outward, while a plan faces inward.
* A strategy orients on factors you don’t control, while a plan focuses on what you do control.
* A strategy measures success, while a plan measures performance.
However, It’s easy to slip right past strategic thinking and into planning mode because the steps feel tangible and clear. “We’ll do x, then y, and then finish with z.” Unfortunately, intense and detailed planning does not ensure success.
A perfect plan won’t save you if the underlying strategy is the wrong choice. Looking back to your vision and mission in chapter 4, think of your vision as an inspirational flag planted on the horizon. That point — shrouded in misty clouds —is your ideal destination. That’s where you want to be.
Your mission is what you will do to make that vision become a reality. You know you need to move from where you are standing to that point on the horizon. In chapter 7, you identified the goals you need to achieve to get there. You can think of those as waypoints along the path you choose. But, you also know the journey will be complex, bumpy, and full of obstacles that will try to stop you.
That’s where your strategy comes into play. Your strategy is how you hypothesize you can navigate that mysterious landscape to follow your mission, achieve your goals, and reach that vision. Let’s play around with this metaphor for a second to make the distinctions clear.
If your vision is to reach a specific mountain peak in the far distance, you could choose one of the following strategies to get there and overcome the obstacles in your path:
* Float over the landscape in a hot air balloon and land on the mountain.
* Fly in a small plane and parachute down to the mountain.
* Take a boat down the river that leads to the mountain's base and climb to the peak.
* Ride a horse through the countryside to reach and ascend the mountain.
* Hike the entire way to the mountain on foot and climb to the peak.
Those are all valid strategies, but each one has pros and cons. Eventually, you will choose the strategy you are best able to employ, hope will take you past all obstacles, and has the greatest chance of success.
Once you have selected a strategy, only then would you start creating a plan to set that strategy in motion. For example:
* Acquire
A flawlessly executed plan will fail if the overarching strategy is flawed.
Let me use a hypothetical situation with a cafe named “Beanville” as an example. Beanville’s strategy to win in a competitive marketplace was to offer the lowest price option to customers. So, Beanville created a plan to acquire, create, and sell the lowest-priced coffee products in town. That plan included all the details required to keep costs down:
* Low-cost commercial real estate
* Sourcing the cheapest coffee beans
* Aggressively negotiating with suppliers
* Low production costs
* Minimum wage employees
* Low-cost packaging
* Pricing and sales strategies
Unfortunately, Beanville’s core strategy was flawed. They discovered that customers in town weren’t so cost-conscious that they were willing to sacrifice the quality of their coffee drinks to save a little money. So, Beanville lost to its competitors, who delivered a better product. Even though they flawlessly executed the plans to support their lowest-price strategy, they still failed. This is why choosing the right strategy matters so much and why it must happen before you go into planning mode.
So, let’s take the time to create a winning strategy that will help you achieve your goals. Developing the right strategy must come before making the appropriate plans to support it.
Invincible Career® is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.
Strategy vs. Plan
People often confuse creating a strategy with making a plan. As Chris Kolenda succinctly points out, here are three critical differences between strategies and plans:
* A strategy faces outward, while a plan faces inward.
* A strategy orients on factors you don’t control, while a plan focuses on what you do control.
* A strategy measures success, while a plan measures performance.
However, It’s easy to slip right past strategic thinking and into planning mode because the steps feel tangible and clear. “We’ll do x, then y, and then finish with z.” Unfortunately, intense and detailed planning does not ensure success.
A perfect plan won’t save you if the underlying strategy is the wrong choice. Looking back to your vision and mission in chapter 4, think of your vision as an inspirational flag planted on the horizon. That point — shrouded in misty clouds —is your ideal destination. That’s where you want to be.
Your mission is what you will do to make that vision become a reality. You know you need to move from where you are standing to that point on the horizon. In chapter 7, you identified the goals you need to achieve to get there. You can think of those as waypoints along the path you choose. But, you also know the journey will be complex, bumpy, and full of obstacles that will try to stop you.
That’s where your strategy comes into play. Your strategy is how you hypothesize you can navigate that mysterious landscape to follow your mission, achieve your goals, and reach that vision. Let’s play around with this metaphor for a second to make the distinctions clear.
If your vision is to reach a specific mountain peak in the far distance, you could choose one of the following strategies to get there and overcome the obstacles in your path:
* Float over the landscape in a hot air balloon and land on the mountain.
* Fly in a small plane and parachute down to the mountain.
* Take a boat down the river that leads to the mountain's base and climb to the peak.
* Ride a horse through the countryside to reach and ascend the mountain.
* Hike the entire way to the mountain on foot and climb to the peak.
Those are all valid strategies, but each one has pros and cons. Eventually, you will choose the strategy you are best able to employ, hope will take you past all obstacles, and has the greatest chance of success.
Once you have selected a strategy, only then would you start creating a plan to set that strategy in motion. For example:
* Acquire
34 min