Six Trends Redefining the Future of Strategy

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WAYNE RIVERS: Hi, everyone. This is Wayne Rivers at Performance Construction Advisors where We Build Better Contractors.

This week, I want to talk about six trends redefining the future of strategy. This is fun. Okay, before I get started, Boot Camp, February, Dallas, contact Charlotte. You know what to do.

This comes from the Chief Executive Briefing. If you're not subscribing to that, you should, or maybe you shouldn't, because then my vlogs will have less impact. But anyway, September 25 by Dr. Lance Matlock, and he quotes Rupert Murdoch at the very beginning of his article. "The world is changing very fast. Big will not beat small anymore. It will be the fast beating the slow."

The way to be fast is to be organized and to have a strategy, a strategic plan, a strategic intent, and then, of course, ways to execute your strategy. So, we'll come to all these as we go forward. He says that the future requires strategies for innovation, creativity, flexibility, and most of all, execution. So many of our strategic plans, it seems like we're all about the basic blocking and tackling, but he's saying that innovation, creativity, flexibility, and, of course, execution are the key going forward. Now, what about this is important to you? For our contractors that have strategic plans and understand the power of their plans, this is the future for you. For those of you in my audience that don't have strategy, that don't have plans, that don't have that track to run on. This should inform you not only that you need strategy, but also how the future of strategy is going to look a little different from the present.

Okay, six trends. The first thing is leadership. Only one in 10 CEO appointments last two years. Now, that's not right. Let me say that again. One in 10, 10% of CEO points failed within the first 10 years. That's a better way to say it. That means... Well, given recent history, and if you think about it, we have one major national or international disaster about every decade. That seems to be the trend, and I don't have to delineate them for you. And so, with CEOs in particular, that turnover, that failure rate is a problem, because CEOs are most challenged to lead during times of crisis. So, whether it's a crisis unique to your business or a macroeconomic crisis or an international crisis or whatever, leadership is absolutely the key. Managing risk and uncertainty is hard, and that's why leadership is not a game for everyone.

The second thing, risk. This is from JP Morgan. There is a 54% chance of the risk of instability and/or global catastrophe at any given time. 54%. They say that you need sharp integrated strategies to differentiate and stay competitive. So, it's your strategy. It's your strategy that differentiate you, that allows you... If you have this roadmap and this strategy and a crisis does come along, are you going to be better or worse off in terms of being able to cope? You're going to be better off, because you already had the track to run on. You're not reinventing the wheel as you go.

The fourth thing... Oh, sorry. The third thing, resilience. Only 15% of companies in the top quartile of growth sustain that performance over 30 years, according to the Harvard Business Review. They talk about three things, three things that cause people to fall out of that growth mode. One, complacency. You've heard us talk about that. Complacency is a business killer. The second thing is short-term thinking, right? Next quarter, next year versus my five-year, 10-year plans. And the third thing is lack of strategic belief. This is a concept we really hadn't considered in our blogs before.

So, we emphasize the importance of strategic planning, having that track to run on. But believing in the strategy is yet another thing, isn't it? And so I think all too many contractors put together a strategy and they kind of put that binder on the shelf, and they don't talk about it among their people. They don't spread the word. They don't spread the enthusiasm. They don't get buy-in, up and down the ranks of the organization. So, they lack strategic beliefs. So, this is a new concept for me, and I think it could be a powerful one.

The fourth thing, talent. You can't execute a strategy without talent. The article says that only 36% of companies have a talent management strategy. And get this. Only 12% of that 36% have a talent strategy that aligns with their strategic goals. Wait, wait. So, they've got enough firepower and enough long-term thinking to put together a talent management strategy, but they didn't check in with the strategic plan or the values and mission and vision of the company. It kind of just boggles the mind.

The fifth thing, overload. 64% of executives report too many conflicting priorities, and they write in the article something that I think is profound. Think about this. The essence of strategy is deciding what not to do, what not do. We talked about this. I have so many presentations where Karen has put in towards the end a big red stop sign, because the only way to change your behavior as a rising leader or as a senior executive, if you're going to add something new, you've got to give up something old. You've got to stop doing things. So, at the end of presentations, what I used to do is put, okay, what three takeaways do you have from this presentation? And what are you going to do about it? And then the next page is, what three things are you going to stop doing? Because introduce new strategies, new behavior, new opportunities, you've got to stop doing some of the old things that you've been doing, which you may not need to do at all anymore.

The sixth thing is execution. We've talked about this before. 90% of strategies fail in their execution. Bad strategy, bad communication of the strategy, lack of strategic belief. What's going on there? We don't know. But 90% of corporate initiatives and strategies fail during the execution phase. So that should be a loud bell clanging, a gong going off, that it's not enough to do a plan and have a binder and have graphics and all the other things. There's more to it than that. And if you're going to fail in the execution... Maybe you get somewhere. Maybe you drive forward with the plan. But if you have to call to failure, that's not what anybody wants.

Okay, let me just read you a couple of things here from the end of the article. "As the world accelerates through unprecedented change, the need for flexible and forward-thinking strategy has never been more critical." That's hard to argue with, isn't it? And finally, "The future belongs to those who can balance innovation and resilience with an unobstructed vision. Now is the time for organizations to reimagine their strategies and propel themselves forward." Again, how can we argue with that?

I'd like to hear from you. [email protected]. This is Wayne Rivers at PCA where We Build Better Contractors.

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