Developing and Implementing Strategy
Ultimately, strategy concentrates effort to overcome a problem or seize an opportunity, but the complexity of life in organisations can make achieving this clarity a challenge.
External assistance can be particularly helpful in working through strategic issues in a structured, systematic way and in making the settled strategy a reality.
Please get in touch to see how we can make strategy real and effective for your organisation
Benefits
Effective, clear strategy focuses the power of your organisation or team on the most promising way forward.
Some of the tangible outcomes of my work with clients are:
Shared clarity of purpose
Objectives achieved
Problems overcome
Systemic change
Effective portfolio management
Engaged staff
Please get in touch to see how we can make strategy real and effective for your organisation
Who I work with
I work with senior leaders and their teams who have responsibility for developing and implementing a strategy for their organisation (or part of it).
That means CEOs, Managing Directors, Directors, Vice-Presidents in industry; and Principals / Vice Chancellors, Vice Principals, Heads of College, Heads of School in universities.
Please get in touch to see how we can make strategy real and effective for your organisation
How we can work together
Specific programmes to improve results and solve problems through strengthened leadership and strategic alignment throughout your organisation
Development of your team as leaders, individually and collectively, including facilitation of small and large groups
Support for you personally in your senior leadership role, as a sounding board and trusted adviser
Accessible opportunities to participate in through-time development of leadership and professional relationship skills and influence
Results
Some examples may be helpful…
One business I worked with, a semi-autonomous research and development unit within a large multinational, was helped to think of itself as a business within a business, not to be subversive, but to bring the disciplines of business management to bear on its need to secure sponsorship and funding for its future programme of work.
In another business, a large manufacturer, a majority of the management team didn’t really have a familiarity with working on strategy and why that was important. I helped them demystify strategy for themselves and equipped them to work on it in a practical, implementable way.
Several universities and parts of universities have been assisted to make strategy real; to evolve a sometimes bewildering array of possibilities into something an academic unit can get behind.
Typically, this involves the crucial step of demonstrating that a breadth of academic activity is truly valued and, at the same time, showing that standout successes in some chosen areas are also necessary for the unit to be well-known, leading to strong backing, which is good for everyone who works there.
Maintaining the truth of these two things at the same time is key.
Testimonials
Resources
Strategic Leaders online workshop group
Join your fellow senior leaders for mutual interaction and insight in a monthly, 1.5-hour online group focusing on aligning your organisation around a settled sense of direction and strategy
Business Leaders’ online workshop group
Join a group of managing directors and CEOs meeting monthly to share experiences, discuss issues and learn new insights relating to a wide range of business issues (1.5 hours, once a month)
The Mastery of Leadership book
Being a great leader of other people starts with being a great leader of yourself. This book sets out my approach to that important starting point
FAQs
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How do you define strategy?
I would follow a number of sources in saying that strategy is primarily the development or choice of an approach to achieve an objective or overcome a problem. It can become confusing though because a strategy at one level in an organisation may well create objectives for the next level down, which then in turn require more local and detailed strategies for their achievement. Of course, achieving clarity about the purpose of an organisation and a vision for its future is often considered alongside strategy for achieving these things.
How does strategy differ between industry and academia?
Actually, not greatly. In both cases, decisions about what areas of activity to be strong in to achieve a desired outcome are central. For universities, that commonly means achieving certain rankings in various league tables; for industry, it means achieving a level of business outcome in the marketplace, also often in the context of competition.
Why do you “mention implementation of strategy” specifically?
Organisations are frequently at risk of dropping the ball when it comes to implementing a strategy they have diligently developed. The task obviously doesn’t finish with a completed strategy document. Indeed, even that should be a living thing, updated as required. Settled strategy needs to lead on to a process of implementation through a portfolio of change-work – a set of initiatives or projects that will involve the wider organisation and deliver the various pieces of change that the strategy requires. This takes us into the realms of programme and project management, which are necessary to manage the necessary work.