7 Strategies for Your Strategies

The Best Laid Plans…

“My best strategy last year failed. It was the third one in a row. In each one, there was a fly in the oitment that killed the project.”

You have probably heard of the “fly in the ointment” adage, but you may not know its origin. Many think it has its roots in the medical community with the idea that a fly has contaminated a previously sterile field.

However, the phrase has biblical origins from Ecclesiastes 10:1 which says: “Dead flies putrefy the perfumer’s ointment, and cause it to give off a foul odor; so does a little folly to one respected for wisdom and honor.” (NKJV)

So what are you thinking about the upcoming year? Is it something like this:

~ You and your team have worked hard to develop a winning strategy for the New Year.

~ You have spent valuable time and resources to produce, publish, and implement the new strategy.

~ “Now—bring it on!” you say…

But wait a minute…

The Strategy Paradox

Perhaps previous strategy plans wound up on the shelf and later in the trash for the dumpster divers to use as kindling for their nightly winter fires. However, this new strategy plan is better and you have spared no time or expense.

Then you remember two years ago when you actually got two months into the new year with your strategy, but it was essentially tabled when some unforeseen economic conditions brought it to a screeching halt.

That is what Michael E. Raynor calls The Strategy Paradox.  The paradox comes into specific relief when a strategy that should succeed fails.

“Strategies with the greatest possibility of success also have the greatest possibility of failure.” Michael E. Raynor in The Strategy Paradox

Raynor outlines a response to strategic uncertainty that can help turn failure into success:

• ANTICIPATE: constructing circumstances of the future
• FORMULATE: constructing the best possible strategies for each of those futures
• ACCUMULATE: conclude what tactical alternative actions are needed
• OPERATE: maintain an assortment of strategic responses

A Strategy For The Strategy

There are 7 things you can do to mitigate the “fly in the ointment” of your strategy:

Plan for the unplanned.

Using the opening medical analogy, if a fly lands in a sterile field, the physician does not simply throw his hands up and send the patient to the hospice to await death. Instead, there is a plan B, C, D, and E.

Designate a crisis response team.

Choose a team of individuals to develop a crisis leadership plan. Crisis leadership is drastically different from “crisis management.” Great leaders should not manage a crisis, but lead through it.

Role-play “Disaster Drills” at staff retreats.

Years ago I worked in emergency medicine, clinical and administrative. To maintain certification, the various emergency services departments were required to stage disaster simulations at irregular intervals. These occurred in the middle of the ongoing missions of the responding companies and agencies.

While they dealt with the real or staged disaster, regular business continued uninterrupted on a parallel course.

Business leaders can plan these as presentations in staff retreats. Examples may be drawn from the news, competitors, history, and from the imaginations of the team. Here are some possibilities:

• simultaneous software failure and resulting cash flow problems.
• organizational success more quickly than expected but resources respond slowly.
• a moral and legal crisis as a result of actions of an executive.

Design flexibility into your strategy.

As your team responds to the strategy paradox, they will become attuned to including flexibility in subsequent strategies.

Include a contingency plan element.

Out of several strategy planning resources consulted, only one included a discussion on contingency planning: Applied Strategic Planning by Goodstein, Nolan, and Pfeiffer. Many strategy plans fail to include this important element and since life and business are dynamic rather than static, these plans are doomed for failure.

Identify crisis leaders.

There are few things more unpredictable than an emergency scene that includes disaster, accident, or crime victims, spectators, citizen responders, law enforcement, firemen, and paramedics.

Throw in weather, darkness, and continued threats and it can really get stressful. Working in those conditions is priceless training for life, work, and leadership.

Such leaders are as cool under pressure as they are at other times. They lead through crises rather than manage it or “hope it goes away.” Paul Sullivan suggests that there may be leaders within your organization who possess the quality of “clutch” leadership ability (Clutch: Why Some People Excel under Pressure and Others Don’t).

Develop a clutch-leadership strategy.

I have sprinkled this principle throughout the present discussion to motivate you to change your thinking about inevitable crises that can disrupt your strategy plan. Consider the BP oil disaster of 2010 and differentiate between the people and organizations that tried to manage the crisis and those who provided genuine crisis leadership.

“Clutch, simply put, is the ability to do what you can do normally under immense pressure.” (Paul Sullivan in Clutch, 9.)

In 2011 there will be several flies in your strategy that have the potential of spoiling your best laid plans. You may be able to limit the damage or even excel in spite of the inevitable crises.

When developing a strategy plan, does your organization include contingency models? On what are the contingency models based? How would you go about identifying “clutch” crisis leaders in your organization? Based on the last five years of historical information, what kinds of crises might you expect that could derail your strategy plan for 2011?

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Dr. Tom Cocklereece is CEO of RENOVA Coaching and Consulting, LLC
He is an author, professional coach, and leadership specialist
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