Some strategic plans are heavy on plans, but light on strategy. Some have beautiful strategy descriptions and diagrams, but no roadmap for execution. There are two words in “strategic plan”, and you need both of them.
The strategy bit
Lafley and Martin (Playing to Win, Harvard Business School Press, 2014) suggest strategy is about describing an integrated and coherent response to five key questions:
- What are our winning aspirations?
- Where will we play?
- How will we win?
- What capabilities are critical to our success?
- What systems and enablers are required?
From my experience, this model works extremely well in professional services. It’s simple, practical and not overly jagonised. It can be used at multiple levels – the firm overall, for practice groups and individual practitioners. When challenged by a sceptic there’s a strong body of research evidence to support it.
The plan bit
The plan element describes your strategic priorities, where you will (and won’t) be investing, what key initiatives will be actioned, who, when and how things will be done. There are five frameworks that you might find helpful to organise and present your thinking:
#1 McKinsey Three Horizon Growth Model – listing key strategic initiatives around the expected timing and certainty of benefit. H1 is around defending and extending core business; H2 building the momentum of emerging new business; and H3 creating options for future business. The graphic below illustrates the use of the Three Horizon model in a strategic plan for a key client.
#2 Kanban Boards – a visualisation tool that enables you to categorise and optimise the flow of work, be it a specific project, a program of work or a major strategic initiative. This agile-friendly tool is brilliant for cross-firm collaboration, accountability and transparency. The graphic below shows a Kanban Board, using Trello software, for a specific strategy project.
#3 Strategy Roadmaps or Infographics – expressing the strategy in the form of a journey, noting key events and milestones on the way. When the strategy is expressed as a narrative, one often finds there’s much greater understanding and buy-in. The graphic below shows a roadmap for an innovation strategy.
#4 Past Present Future – detailing the specific things that will be changed and those things that will be preserved. This is a simple device to explain the implications of a particular strategic direction. The graphic below shows the changes an engineering firm is seeking in adopting a client-centric strategy and culture.
#5 Strategic Pillars – a graphic device summarising the key areas that will be focused on in strategy execution. The symbolism of the pillar model is that each component is necessary for success – missing one pillar compromises the integrity of the whole. The graphic below shows a pillar model for a strategic account management program.
Call to action
Take a quick look at your current strategic plan and ask yourself these three questions:
- In light of market, client and competitor trends over the next few years, have we put enough thought into where will play and how we will win?
- Are we crystal clear on our major priorities, investments and actions?
- Have we presented our strategic thinking in a coherent and compelling way?
If the answer is ‘not really’ to any or all of the questions, then it’s appropriate to invoke another famous two-word phrase: IT’S TIME.
Relationship Capital 
account planning, business, business development, change management, growth, innovation, internal collaboration, marketing, planning, professional service firms, strategy management
Innovation for sceptics
In Articles, Commentary on 9 February 2017 at 3:19 pmMany professional service firms have innovation as a key strategic theme. At the front-end of most innovation processes, is the step of generating fresh, creative, out-of-the-box ideas. In marketing-speak, this is called the “ideation” stage.
Conventional ideation methods include brainstorming workshops, shark tank competitions, market studies and voice-of-the-client programs. While each of these have merit, I’d like to suggest the trusted sparring partner* as an alternative approach. Put simply, this method involves setting up pairs of people to work together to come up with some fresh innovative ideas. In the sparring process, ideas get suggested, expanded, challenged, expanded again, refined, explored, split, elaborated, and then captured.
Why does it work so well in professional services?
In a group of two…
By the by, there’s also a growing body of research that dismisses the idea of the lone genius driving all breakthrough thinking. This partially explains why client interviews are helpful for service feedback, but often not great for fresh insights and ideas.
Putting it in practice
Ideally, the pairs should be set up so that there’s some diversity of experience and background. Don’t put two people who hate each other together, but no BFF’s either. The idea is to create safe trusting dyads that can spar and spark off each other. Diversity can also come from pairing up one internal person with a key client or a referrer. Mixing up disciplines eg. a technologist with human behaviour expert, might also be fun.
Assuming you wish to have a short and sharp ideation process, I’d recommend giving the pair a limited time to work, say two to three weeks, and a semi-structured brief to orientate their discussions. This brief may, for example, focus on new products and services, alternative business models, ideas for cost-reduction, client experience enhancements, better staff engagement, and or smarter use of the firm’s balance sheet. You may elect a much wider brief such as “ideas to improve the firm’s competitiveness”, but beware, some people can drown if the ocean is too big.
At the beginning you may limit the duration of their discussions and narrow their task, however, if the pair flourish, there’s no reason to limit their energy and creativity by stopping it.
Call to action
The world has benefited hugely from trusted sparring partners: Lennon and McCartney, Jobs and Wozniak, Laurel and Hardy, Gilbert and Sullivan, Sturridge and Suarez, Batman and Robyn, Gates and Allen, Mork and Mindy, Simon and Garfunkel… Wouldn’t it be great if you could enable your very own Rolls and Royce to emerge in your firm? Really easy to try…
* This idea of sparring partners comes from a 2016 HBR article by Roberto Verganti, The Innovative Power of Criticism.
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