Picture by Ursula Castillo on Unsplash
Now you need a strategy to keep it circulating
Recipe for success, a blueprint for building
Some rules to live by, steps for solutions
From the song ‘Algorhythm’
By CodeScty
‘Can I choose more than one?’ is the reflexive response from business leaders when I propose they choose a single strategy for their companies. The question embodies their threat response to being restricted. The notion appears to demand putting all of their eggs in one basket, too confining to be realistic and too risky to be wise.
Of course, they can make whatever choice they want; however, I have found the precise answer to be ‘No.’ This article aims to convince you of the same and make a compelling case for why.
This writing focuses on organizations, yet the approach remains equally valid for individuals and teams. Integrating one overarching strategy with indispensable values and purpose creates foundational alignment—a set of unchanging principles representing an antidote to the whirlwind of the escalating pace of change and uncertainty we face in business and life.
Strategy defines ‘what’ the particular plan to fulfill leadership’s brand promise will be.
“Choosing a narrowly defined methodology gives organizations the requisite clarity of a common focus-point to channel all available efforts and resources, eliminating distraction, waste, and contradiction.”
Paradoxically, homing in on one approach expands possibilities by blurring our view of peripheral elements and reinforces our focus on ones of consequence. It emphasizes the leverage of functional relationships, creating outsized output from comparatively little input.
It facilitates responsive and aligned decision-making, causing everyone to row in the same direction, in time with one another instead of operating at cross-purposes, thus propelling businesses forward more quickly and proficiently. The collective benefits derived from a single overarching strategy differentiate companies in noticeable, meaningful, and lasting ways.
The book The Discipline of Market Leaders is one of several resources I draw on to help leaders guide strategic decision-making. In it, the authors contend businesses cannot achieve success in today’s market through blended strategies and, instead, must select a very particular one from the following options:
- Innovation Leadership
- Operational Excellence
- Customer Intimacy
Innovation Leadership
Companies adopting the Innovation Leader Strategy generate perpetual originality of their products and services to keep them at the forefront of their respective markets. Inventiveness can present itself in myriad ways, including thought leadership and how disparate concepts and ideas combine to generate distinctive perspectives and mindsets. 4C Consulting embraces Innovation Leadership as its overarching strategy. Recognizable companies employing Innovation Leadership include Apple and Rocket Mortgage.
Operational Excellence
Operational Excellence describes firms that home in on providing highly consistent levels of quality at the best price. The focus of these organizations is efficiency and repeatability. Well-known companies incorporating Operational Excellence include Walmart and Vanguard.
Customer Intimacy
Customer Intimacy designates companies that distinguish themselves through extraordinarily profound relationships with their clients. They go to great lengths to understand their customers and create strong ties with them. Thus, enabling them to customize customer touchpoints of their products and services to match specific desires. Identifiable businesses implementing Customer Intimacy include Nordstrom’s and Wawa.
Selecting a primary strategy does not mark the end of decision-making; it initiates a host of choices, practices, and systems required to bring the plan to fruition. All options remain available to leaders; however, the criteria will be distinctly different.
The selection of enterprise computer software, for example, will vary based on the plan.
- An Innovation Leadership firm will prioritize its capacity to facilitate the creation, roll-out, and marketing of new product and service offerings.
- An Operation Excellence company will emphasize its ability to support cost reduction and highly reliable manufacturing and delivery.
- A Customer Intimacy business will seek functions enabling quick, customizable responses to customer preferences, such as order history and detailed customer information.
“Leaders need to realize they can successfully implement each one of these strategies in any sector.”
Wawa represents the finest example of a company embracing a strategy you would not think viable in its industry.
A category-defying, super-regional convenience retailer, Wawa sells gasoline, made-to-order sandwiches, prepared fresh foods, drinks, and food staples. The company elicits extraordinary customer loyalty through Customer Intimacy while moving customers through its stores, rapidly creating community and connections 5-minutes at a time.
In another case, a domestic medical device and products manufacturer employs one of the keenest strategies I know. The founder’s single-minded focus of ‘cutting costs 10% every year’ embodies it—a relentlessly audacious goal that leaves zero ambiguity about the approach.
The company does not execute its plan on its frontline workers’ backs or work its executives to the bone. It does highly incentivize everyone in the company to achieve the goal. If the firm meets or exceeds its objective, associates earn compensation well over the market; if missed, associates earn significantly less than the market.
A manufacturer needs to do more than cut costs. In this case, it develops products in-house, so it has something to sell. However, the hyper-focus of its plan places a premium on reliable product design and production, worker safety, and quality control, among others, to avoid costs related to product returns, production interruptions, and increased insurance premiums. They all emanate from a plainly articulated Operational Excellence strategy.
I know three companies successfully deploying distinctly different approaches in the same market. Yet, only one explicitly names and claims its strategy. As a result, it appreciably outperforms longer-standing and better-capitalized competitors, demonstrating the potency of a singular approach.
The process takes curiosity, reflection, courage, and rigor. The brightest leaders and executive teams get outside support from consultants or coaches to aid their discovery and adoption process.
Key Take-aways:
- A single overarching strategy pinpoints ‘what’ the plan will be to fulfill the leadership’s brand promise. A similar process works to distinguish individuals and teams.
- Clarity expands possibilities rather than constricts them.
- The Discipline of Market Leaders offers a powerful model for strategy identification and adoption.
- Innovation Leadership, Operational Excellence, and Customer Intimacy represent viable strategies for organizations in any sector.
- A clearly defined core methodology creates a point of alignment for all supporting initiatives, systems, and decision-making.
- Integrating overarching strategy with indispensable values and purpose creates foundational alignment, an antidote to relentless change and uncertainty.
If getting help selecting and executing your overarching strategy/approach would benefit you, your team, organization, please reach out to me. I welcome the connection.