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Dr. Alan G. Robinson, Isenberg School of Management, Author - "Ideas Are Free"
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Ed Gerding, Chief Engineer C-17 St. Louis, The Boeing Company
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Perry Walraven, President and CEO, Performance Controls, Inc. a Subsidiary of Hitachi Medical Corporation
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W. Lowell Putnam, Chairman/CSO, VCI (Video Communications, Inc.)
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John Heaps, President, Florence Savings Bank
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Jane Lansing, VP Marketing, Emerson Process Management
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Laurie Fenlason, Vice President for Public Affairs, Smith College
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Dana Badgerow, General Manager, AeroMet Corporation
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Chuck McCullagh, CFO, The Williston Northampton School
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Suzanne Beck, Executive Director, Greater Northampton Chamber of Commerce
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Aimee Griffin Munnings, Esq., Director, Western New England College Law and Business Center for Advancing Entrepreneurship
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Russell Peotter, General Manager, WGBY - Public Television for Western New England
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Joan Schuman, Executive Director, Hampshire Educational Collaborative
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Rev. Johanna McCune Wagner, Director of Religious Life, The Culver Academies
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Every organization would benefit from the material found in Ann’s audio seminar, “Meeting Mastery.”
Chuck Hatch, General Manager, Packaging Corporation of America
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A Great Idea Is Not a Strategy
It always makes sense to learn about your customers' wants and needs. Great ideas for how to satisfy those wants and needs can come from up, down, and outside your organization and can become invaluable inputs to your strategic planning process.
But a list of ideas, even a sorted and filtered list, is not a strategy. Too often organizations chase promising ideas rather than develop a strategy. This is like trying to acquire a team of top athletes without first deciding which sport you intend to play. You may be able to build a team around a top athlete, just as you may be able to build your business around one fabulous idea, but that is the exception, not the rule.
A good strategic planning process looks at market needs, wants, and trends. It welcomes a plethora of ideas for providing value for which customers are willing to pay. But, most importantly, it rises above these individual inputs to develop a strategy that answers the bigger questions:
- Which combination of offerings and markets would allow us to win profitably?
- How will we win?
- At what must we excel to win profitably?
If you chase even a few exciting ideas without creating a cohesive strategy, you are likely to find yourself stretched in too many directions:
- New and multiple markets and marketing methods
- New sales channels, relationships, and sales cycles
- New customer priorities, requirements, decision-makers, and decision processes
- New regulations, competitors, and barriers to entry
- Multiple products and brands
- New expertise, production capabilities, development cycles, quality levels, and employees
- New investments
How many of these can you conquer with sufficient speed and effectiveness to beat the competition, win an abundance of customers, manage cash flow, deliver expected quality, and make a good profit? Not many. Don't chase an assortment of ideas. Develop a strong, cohesive strategy that allows you to focus your resources and win.
© 2010 Ann Latham. All Rights Reserved.
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“Thank you for a great two days. You are clearly a gifted facilitator and helped us achieve some important outcomes, both in terms of a strategy for the future and our ability to work more collaboratively together. The ROI was there.”
Bob Fazzi, President & CEO, Fazzi Associates
“Ann is simply outstanding at moving a group to a strong conclusion. In our case, I couldn’t have imagined a better outcome. What makes her particularly unusual is that there isn’t a lot of noise, she doesn’t distract, and no one wastes time. She lets discussions run but doesn’t let them run amok. She is deliberate and straight forward with a soft touch that keeps people on task, the process moving forward, and ideas flowing. By always maintaining a clear purpose, next steps, and expectations, she made me a better contributor and able to get on task quickly despite the limited time I had for the project. After working with Ann, I wouldn’t hesitate to recommend her to anyone in need of a strategy, plan, arbitration, facilitation, etc.”
Chuck McCullagh, CFO, The Williston Northampton School