Strategy Made Practical

Strategy is both an exhilarating and a confusing business topic. It's exciting to think about mapping out the future direction of your business, but as soon as you cross over into actually discussing strategy you will oftentimes find yourself in a room filled with people using different foreign languages. Everyone has a different meaning for the word strategy, and everyone has different opinions on how to craft a strategy.

Strategy is like Religion

Strategy is to business, both for-profits and not-for-profits, what religion is to the world. They're both important and both very confusing. People disagree as to what a religion is, what religion should be all about, whether or not religions make sense, and what the real beliefs are even within the same religious denomination.

The same is true with strategy. People will argue over the meaning of the word strategy, what strategy should be all about, whether or not strategies make sense, and what the real strategic direction is even within the same organization. There's no common basis as to a given set of steps to take to craft a strategy or how to communicate a strategy or how to implement a strategy.

Strategic Acceleration

Having said all of that, strategy is a very, very important part of business acceleration. I actually think of it as strategic acceleration. Over the past ten years, one of the topics I've come back to over and over again is the topic of strategy. I've worked with my clients on clarifying their strategy, I've read numerous books on strategy, and I've attended several seminars on strategy.

My goal all along has been to craft an approach to strategy that was simple, clear, and practical. I wanted one that could be easily explained and understood and repeated. I didn't want a simplistic explanation, but I also didn't want it to be so complicated that even my friends with a Harvard MBA couldn't understand it.

During this strategic journey, I've met a few key individuals who helped me a great deal: Dr. Alan Weiss, who is my mentor, and Alan Fortier, Amanda Setili, and Nancy MacKay, all great strategists in their own right.

A Practical Approach to Strategy Formulation, Communication, and Implementation

Over the past six months, I've worked on a special document that I'm calling, Dan Coughlin's Guide to Make Strategy Practical (PDF). It is 23-pages long. I'm usually a big fan of brevity, as in one to three pages, on any topic, but this time I wanted to write a concise and yet comprehensive approach to strategy. It's not a book on strategy, but more like a car owner's manual. It's there when you need a place to refer to for the next step in the process.

I've made no attempt to interject catchy and clever phrases. Instead I've focused on guiding the reader step-by-step through the essential keys to formulating, communicating, and implementing an organizational strategy that can accelerate the achievement of the most important desired long-term results for an organization. I encourage you to print out this guide and read through it two or three times. It moves along pretty quickly. Then go through it step by step and apply it to your organization.

The link to the free Dan Coughlin's Guide to Make Strategy Practical is http://www.thecoughlincompany.com/guide_to_make_strategy_practical.pdf

Recommended Resources

In Dan Coughlin's Guide to Make Strategy Practical, I've included about a dozen books on strategy and why I recommend them. I hope you find them to be of value as well.

Republishing Articles

Each month my e-newsletter gets republished in approximately 20 blogs, on-line publications, and internal publications for businesses, universities, and not-for-profit organizations. If you would like to republish all or part of my monthly articles, please send me an e-mail at dan@thecoughlincompany.com with "Republishing Article" in the subject heading. I will send you the article in a word document. All I ask is that you include my name as the author of the article and a short paragraph at the end of the article about me with a link to my website.

Take care and have a great month!

Dan Coughlin

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