STRATEGY SESSIONS  #5

BEYOND THE ME IN STRATEGY

by Dr. Steve Payne

Let’s shift attention to introducing the second step in a truly strategic self-management process.

We all are aware of certain opportunities and threats that surround us, but more systematic investigation and better knowledge concerning relevant opportunities and threats can improve our success in our careers and lives. A systematic analysis of these opportunities and threats includes, first, a scanning of basic information on conditions existing in the general environment or outside world. By general environment, I mean economic, political, technological, social, and other conditions. Some people are more aware of trends and conditions in these environments due to their regularly scanning of information from newspapers, magazines, and the internet. Some executives and political strategists even hire assistants to prepare “briefing books” to keep them constantly abreast of developing news and trends.

Beyond general information scanning, a more focused monitoring is needed of information sources about certain external conditions and trends that have much more meaning related to our own personal goals. Again, some people have greater access to such focused information or spend much more time than others monitoring trends. Even further analysis of opportunities and threats occurs through gathering information and projecting how certain conditions and trends might likely develop into the future. The purpose of all this information scanning, monitoring, and projecting is an assessment of which conditions and trends might lead to significant personal opportunities and threats.

The importance of analyzing external environments for strategy formulation was highlighted back in the early 1980s with the #1 best-seller entitled Megatrends by JohnNaisbitt. That book and others have offered recommendations of particular ways to collect more accurate and far-sighted external information as a base for strategy selection.

To investigate personal opportunities and threats, we need to shift next to specific industries or markets and the competition for resources, capabilities, and core competencies to serve or support these particular markets. Who are these competitors of ours? And what resources and capabilities, apparent goals, strategies, and likely assumptions about the future do these competitors have? This competitor analysis is necessary in order to appraise the attractiveness of a particular market or industry for our competitive pursuit. Actually mapping types of competitors and describing them along several dimensions (goals, basic strategies, capabilities, etc.) in contrast to our own dimensions can prove useful. Some markets or opportunities are impractical or very difficult to pursue due to personal resource limitations, usually involving various types of cost or delays for an individual to compete effectively there.

In order to begin to develop strategies for competing in specific individual markets, customers for our capabilities and services need be understood. Who are these customers? What are they seeking or what capabilities would impress them? How might these customers be better served than now and better contacted for marketing our own capabilities? Markets that seem attractive can be studied further and split into particular subsets of activity or functioning and the types of customers involved. Who is actually getting hired within particular market niches and what capabilities do they have in contrast or comparison to you?

Based upon this rough introduction to the first and second steps of a strategic self-management process that I’ve outlined, I’ll move along next to describe some actual typesof strategies. These will range from more basic types of strategies to some strategies that are more advanced.