S8 E5-8 The critical challenges growing businesses need to get right with Jeremy Gray

Jeremy Gray – Practical Solutions to Difficult Problems

IBGR. Network. The World of Business at Your Fingertips
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Season 8 Show Notes: The critical challenges growing businesses need to get right.

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Episode 5 Six reasons why your strategic plan fails to deliver. The Hidden Barriers and how to identify them. Part 1
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Based on HBR article by Michael Beer “6 Reasons Your Strategy Isn’t Working”. Published June 2020

Some or all these hidden barriers may exist in your organization. They may go unrecognized; they are often not discussed for fear of the consequences because they address failings in the organization. 

Even good strategies will fail if these barriers are present in your organization; because your team cannot execute until these barriers are removed.

Hidden Barrier #1 Unclear Values and Conflicting Priorities. 
This occurs when a strategy is developed without sufficient consultation with the employees at the coal face. 

Hidden Barrier #2 An Ineffective Senior Team. 

You may not like it, but your employees may consider you ineffective at strategy. Research in the Harvard Business Review shows that 71 percent of employees in companies with weak execution believe strategic decisions are second-guessed, as opposed to 45 percent of employees from companies with strong execution. 
Hidden Barrier #3 Ineffective Leadership Style. 

This refers to individual leadership. There are two, contrasting leadership styles that can derail the implementation of strategies. Firstly, the top down approach that does not involve team members sufficiently to build their commitment to the project in hand. Secondly the laissez faire non-confrontational style that does not encourage buy in as the impression created is that the project is not that important. 

Tags: How to grow a business, achieve business success, strategic plan, execution, barriers to success, the successful entrepreneur, business common mistakes small business start-up; avoid these common mistakes; IBGR.network, Jeremy Gray, Practical Solutions to Difficult Problems

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Episode 6 Six reasons why your strategic plan fails to deliver. The Hidden Barriers and how to identify them. Part 2
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Hidden Barrier #4 Poor Coordination, a lack of willingness.

Most companies work well within silos, but any project worthy of the name strategy will work across silos. Possibly across geographies. And this is where coordination often breaks down. Coordination is critical for the effective implementation of strategies and it always a challenge. 

Hidden Barrier #5. Inadequate leadership development.

Leaders do not learn leadership through training courses but by being challenged by difficult assignments or difficult decisions. To achieve this managers, need to be willing to release their best employees for work on projects that will develop their skills. They need to make a sacrifice for the greater good of the organization as a whole. 

Hidden Barrier #6. Inadequate vertical communication.

Let’s be a bit more specific, inadequate honest vertical communication is the problem here. Leaders do not take enough time to communicate the company’s strategic direction and values with folks lower in the organization. They use the trickledown effect where each manager explains the strategy to his direct reports and so on. At each stage the message gets less clear.

Tags: How to grow a business, achieve business success, strategic plan, execution, barriers to success, the successful entrepreneur, business common mistakes small business start-up; avoid these common mistakes; IBGR.network, Jeremy Gray, Practical Solutions to Difficult Problems

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Episode 7 Bridging the execution gap. Learn for teams who have achieved success.

Vision without action is a daydream. Action without vision is a nightmare. Japanese Proverb.

No one individual can execute a strategic plan, it must be a team effort if success is to be achieved. Nathan Wiita, and Orla Leonard decided to look at how the most successful teams bridge the execution gap. The gap between what the strategic plan says what needs to be done, compared with what actually gets done. What differentiates teams that achieve success from teams that fail to execute? How do they spend their time? What critical behaviors do they engage in that enables them to attain their goals. The researchers found X behaviors that lead to success.

1. Commit to an identity. The successful organizations were committed to a common identity which was achieved by a shared understanding of its value proposition and the distinctive capabilities. 
2. Translate the strategy into everyday processes and capabilities. This includes establishing financial and operational metrics so that goals are aligned with overall strategy. Resources are allocated appropriately; progress is measured and reviewed. 
3.  Concentrate on unique cultural factors that fuel success. This is means building on your company’s strengths rather than trying drive change programs based on fixing gaps or weaknesses.  To facilitate this, it is helpful to have a mission statement that serves as a guide to how resources may be allocated. 
4. Shape the future: Companies that excel at execution find the time for planning – setting a direction for their organization, working on their vision and, of course, their strategy. They are faster to respond the changes in the business environment. Based on HBR article “How the most successful teams bridge the strategy-execution gap. Nanthan Wiita and Orla Leonard, November 2017

Turning Strategy into Results – Simplicity and Flexibility are key.

Strategies can be complex but to be implement simple and flexible guidelines are needed. Guidelines that can be well understood by the majority of your employees.

The often-cited advice to leaders is to distill the companies into a few core ideas. The target customers, (the who), the value proposition (what) and how to deliver, sell and distribute the products or services (the how).  Sounds great but probably only works in very focused companies. A low-cost regional airline would be an example – they provide only one type of service to a particular customer type.

But what if your business is more complicated? Serving multiple customers with a range of products with different distribution channels. 

1. Limit the number of strategic priorities to five or less. 
2. Focus on mid term objectives. Strategic priorities are a bridge between your company’s long-term goals and short term operating plans. 
3. Pull towards the future. Priorities should outline how your company will create and capture value in the future, not how it did it in the past. 
4. Make the hard calls. In an organization of any size there will be dozens or more competing and conflicting priorities. 
5. Ensure that the priorities provide concrete guidance. Too often priorities are so vague it is impossible to guess the industry the company is operating in, let alone the name of the company itself. 
6. Align the top team. It is only too common for there to be disagreement among the top execs on what are the companies most important strategies. Executing strategies requires working across company boundaries. 

Executing strategies in not easy, that is why most strategic plans fail to meet their objectives. To achieve success your company needs the right culture, a culture of execution and clear easily understood communication of what is most important for success.

Tags: How to grow a business, achieve business success, strategic plan, execution, barriers to success, the successful entrepreneur, business common mistakes small business start-up; avoid these common mistakes; IBGR.network, Jeremy Gray, Practical Solutions to Difficult Problems

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Episode 8 The end of abundance thinking – how to operate in a time of scarcity.
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Most of us run our businesses in a time of abundance. It was relatively easy to get the materials we needed to produce the goods we offered. Workers were plentiful, energy was cheap. That has all changed. Companies all around the world are facing a supply crisis. 

Notwithstanding the supply chain challenges your customers have been used to getting what they want, when they want it, at a price they can afford. Speed of delivery has been a cornerstone of Amazon’s strategy and it gives the company a key competitive advantage. Your brand’s reputation is at risk if you cannot meet your customer’s expectations. In the world of social media people will voice their dissatisfaction loudly and widely.

Although this is a challenging situation, handled well it has the potential to make your supply chain a value creator. How? Consider another trend that will continue to become more important in the next few years, sustainability. Consumers are saying that sustainability is important, some are already beginning to change their behaviors. Balancing affordability with sustainability may be a way to reposition your brand to your advantage with your customers.

Repairing modern equipment is often challenging, making it easier to by new. Not too surprisingly manufacturers have encouraged this idea. Governments and consumers are taking note, a “right to repair” movement is growing around the world. In the UK there are laws legally requiring manufacturers to make spare parts available to people buying electrical appliances. Think about the competitive advantage you could gain if your products had a reputation of being easy to repair. And the sale of spare parts can be very profitable.

It may be time to think again about your product’s lifecycle. Extending a product’s lifecycle will reduce costs significantly. New product development costs money. 

Can you make the consumer’s desire for green a cost saver for you? I have always been amused by the hotel industry that encourages us not to change our towels each day, to only change bedsheets every week. Of course, this is what most of us do at home, so it is a perfectly reasonable request. The fact this reduces the hotel’s laundry costs is never mentioned.      

Packaging is an area that is ripe for improvement. Plastic pollution in the oceans is a global disgrace and there is a worldwide movement against disposable plastic. 

Keep an eye on customer attitudes towards sustainability and beyond to “nature positive” which focuses on enhancing the resilience of our plants to reverse nature loss. The trends towards protecting the world’s ecosystem will grow; if you can identify how you can contribute towards improving the environment and reducing your costs you will be onto a winner.

Tags: How to grow a business, achieve business success, scarcity, opportunity change business model the successful entrepreneur, business common mistakes small business start-up; avoid these common mistakes; IBGR.network, Jeremy Gray, Practical Solutions to Difficult Problems

Please do not hesitate to contact me for chat via the following links:
mailto:jeremy@business-in-asia.org

Or schedule time via Calendly:
https://calendly.com/3-continents-consulting

My websites include:
https://business-in-asia.org/
https://thedentistscfo.com/

My LinkedIn URL
https://www.linkedin.com/in/jeremy-gray1

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