Can You Say What Your Strategy Is? Surprisingly Few Can

We talk about strategy a lot in the business world.  What is our strategy?  How do we become more strategic?  What are our competitors' strategies?  When we don't know how to justify doing a project, we say it's strategic.

But a Harvard Business Review piece in their April 2008 journal entitled "Can You Say What Your Strategy Is?" rightfully asserts what we probably already knew.  Many people can't summarize their company's strategy in 35 words or less.  And that even if someone can, their colleagues may not put it in the same way.

The article states, "It's a dirty little secret: Most executives cannot articulat the objective, scope, and advantage of their business in a simple statement.  If they can't, neither can anyone else."

This is a big problem.  Most firms offer up nonsense like that given in the article of "maximizing shareholder wealth by exceeding customer expectations for _____ [insert product or service here] and providing opportunities for our employees to lead fulfilling lives while respecting the environment and the communities in which we operate."

This is not a strategic objective.  I'm not sure what it is except a waste of space to be honest because I'm not sure as an employee or manager I know what I'm supposed to do with this or how this might inspire me in any small way.

So the strategy as the authors rightfully assert is having an objective, scope and an advantage.  I'd encourage you to read the article as it has some interesting examples.  The area where I think organizations should spend even more time once they have a strategy is on the resource allocation that accompanies this strategy.  Ultimately, if your strategy says one thing but your allocation of resources doesn't match with that, your strategy is again just words on paper.  Resource allocation drives strategy.  This is why corporate portfolio management of the resource allocation process is so vital to executing strategy and realizing financial objectives.