When strategic planning, a SWOT helps you define your business strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats.
A useful tool you can use to assess the environment you’re competing in is called the SWOT analysis. SWOT stands for Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats. And typically, it’s drawn on a grid. For strengths and weaknesses, those are typically within your own organization, capabilities you have or don’t have. As far as opportunities and threats, they can either be internal or external market-facing opportunities and threats.
So let me walk through an example. As you build a SWOT analysis, you’ll want to have the team together and have people throw out their ideas. And it’s generally a brainstorming session. Read more
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Our reader poll today asks: Have you ever been through a merger/acquisition process during your career?
Yes, I’ve had my company be acquired by another: 45%
Yes, I’ve been at a company that acquired another one: 35%
No, I’ve never been involved in one of those situations: 19%
Merger challenges. 80% of you have been involved in mergers either as the buyer or the bought. They’re extremely challenging and stressful situations. One of the most challenging aspects of any merger is managing the culture combination. Processes, technology, products, operations, financials… those are all relatively straightforward to sort out. The big leadership challenge is creating one new culture from the two that came together. Failure to do so creates great risk for the organization and can definitely adversely affect the merger’s outcome. As a leader, stay focused on cultural issues. Pay attention to brewing culture conflicts and get in front of them. Define the culture you want to build and find every opportunity you can to reinforce it. Pointing out actions that are or are not consistent with the desired culture helps people understand what you’re building toward. Your team can handle the operating details – they need you focused on combining two cultures into one successful one.
Do you agree with these poll results? Let us know in the comments below!
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Identify your organization’s major threats and opportunities by assessing these five aspects of your market.
As you begin your strategic planning process, it’s important to assess the market you’re competing in. A classic tool for doing so is Porter’s five forces. Dr. Michael Porter, who’s a professor of strategy, came up with this set of five forces to evaluate all the different dynamics that can affect your organization. Read more
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Our reader poll today asks: Who has had the greatest impact on your leadership development over the years?
A boss I’ve worked for: 64%
A peer: 7%
A member of my team: 5%
A family member: 8%
A leadership coach/expert/speaker/author: 12%
A business personality (CEO, well-known executive): 4%
Bosses by far. The vast majority of you have been most impacted by a boss you’ve worked for in terms of developing your leadership skills. Let’s flip that around – if you’re a manager, what are YOU doing to develop your people? Clearly bosses have a disproportionate impact on team leadership skills development. Are you spending enough time on it? Are you creating development opportunities for team members? Are you investing in their skills through training, resources, and most importantly, giving them your time and attention? A leader’s job is to create the next generation of leaders. Make sure when your team members answer a poll like this in their future that they’re thinking of you and selecting their boss as having had the greatest impact on their leadership development.
Do you agree with these poll results? Let us know in the comments below!
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Learning how to build goals from the bottom up connects individuals to the broader mission.
In addition to building your goals from the top-down, a useful exercise is to build goals from the bottom-up. It helps get team buy-in and it can identify new opportunities for upside. For bottom-up goals, start with what the team thinks they can commit to. What they can deliver. Ask them what they can stretch to. Then work from those individual drivers, those individual goals, up to the bigger metrics that matter for the organization.
If you have an organization that’s trying to drive sales and you have a team full of sales reps, you may look at the individual bottom-up goals of number of calls that they’re going to make in an hour. Those then roll up to the number of calls that they’re able to connect on in an hour, which rolls up to a broader goal of the number of pitches that they’re making to customers, and a goal above that of how many pitches are being accepted by the customer. That can tie to a bigger goal of the number of contracts sent and pricing being achieved, a bigger goal of number of contracts being closed, and ultimately, end up in the big organizational goal of how much revenue is being generated.
Working from the bottom-up ties the individual to the broader mission. In terms of identifying new opportunities, I found this out firsthand. I had a team where I went to all my team members and I asked them for their profit goal for the year. One team came back to me with five times what I would have expected. I would have given them a goal of say, $5 million. And they came back and said, we’re going to get you 25. I was shocked and I asked them, where did you get this? They showed me they had found a huge new opportunity I wasn’t aware of. When I went to commit to my boss, I only committed 3x of that 5x they had found. I learned on the back end they had sandbagged me, and the number was 10x what I would have asked for them in the first place. They left upside for themselves and had hedged their goal to me. They were excited to exceed that hedge but they made sure they didn’t over promise to the organization.
Building from the bottom-up in that situation was great because it brought forth a new opportunity and we were able to roll it into the broader organizational goal. When you go through your goal setting exercise, go to your team and work from the bottom-up, from those low level metrics that tie to the higher level organizational goals. Look for buy-in from your team in terms of the goals that they’re going to set, and try and identify new opportunities for upside. That bottom-up goal setting process is going to give you tighter goals that are more closely tied to the broader organizational ones and hopefully help you find new opportunities to pursue.
Want to learn more about setting goals? How about taking an entire course on it? Go directly to the course and start learning how to set better goals. The entire course is available at LinkedIn Learning. Enjoy!
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Our reader poll today asks: How effective are the leaders in your organization at coaching their team members?
Extremely — They’re great coaches. 1.6%
Very — They do a solid job of coaching. 11.9%
Somewhat — Their coaching skills could use some improvement. 36%
Not very — They rarely coach and when they do, they’re not effective. 30%
Not at all — They have no idea what coaching is. 20.4%
Development requires coaching. It’s pretty scary to see 86% of you responding that your leaders need better coaching skills and that 50% are pretty bad at it. A leaders’ job is to build the next generation of leaders. If you can’t coach your people, it’s pretty hard to help them develop their skills. Take a hard look at your own coaching skills and those of the leaders working for you. Do you need to improve those skills? What are you doing about it? When are you going to do it? Hold yourself accountable to improving in this arena. Read a book. Take a course. Find a mentor who is a great coach and ask them to help you build your coaching skills. The sooner you start building your coaching skills, the sooner your people will get the leadership and development they need from you. You owe it to them to improve your abilities in this arena.
Do you agree with these poll results? Let us know in the comments below!
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Learning how to build goals from the top down ensures that everyone’s work is headed in the same direction.
Goals shouldn’t just tie from your strategy down to the individual goals. When you add your goals up, they also need to align from corporate goals down to the individual. Ensure everyone’s work is headed in the same direction and people know how they fit in—how their work contributes to the broader goals we’re trying to achieve. The way you do this is you work from the vision down to subcomponents, then down to subcomponents below that, all the way down to individual goals. Goals should cascade from the highest levels down. And when you add them all up, hopefully, it’s more than you’re trying to get to at the top level. Why? Well, you want to make sure that you hit that goal. By over-allocating that goal across the organization, you’re going to increase the chances that you hit the big goal.
I worked for an operating division at one point, and we had a goal of $200 million of revenue. There were five regions in the organization. Each region was given a goal of $42 million. Now, that’s $210 million. Within those regions, each branch was given a goal. And when you totaled up all the branches, it came to $215 million worth of goals. We then looked at the individual sales reps, and every sales rep was given a goal. When we totaled up all the sales rep goals, it was $220 million. Adding up those individual goals exceeded the division goal by 10%, by $20 million. The reason we did this was to ensure that we hit that top level, $200 million goal.
Over the course of the year, obviously, some sales reps exceeded their goals, some met their goals, and some fell short. Working from the top-down ensured the primary goal was focused on. Everyone was focused on driving sales. And by over-allocating that goal from top down to individual helped us achieve that goal. Now, when you do this, if you’re going to go with an over-allocating approach to setting these goals from the big goal down to individuals, be careful about over-planning that hand because you may make it such that that goal is not achievable.
One time I’ve seen this dynamic is when I was in the Army and we had to be at formation at a certain time. Our company commander would say, “I want everybody at formation at 6:00 a.m.” The lieutenants would then go to the organization and say, “I want everybody at formation at 5:30 a.m.” The platoon sergeants then went to the teams and said, “I want everybody in formation at 5:00 a.m.” The squad leaders then said, “I want everybody in formation at 4:30 a.m.” The next thing you know, you’ve got this Corp private standing out there in a parking lot at 4:00 a.m., waiting for a formation that happens two hours from now. Bad things can happen when you over-allocate a goal down to the individual level.
So balance it out. Look at the high-level goal, break it down into subcomponents, and look at the individual goals that are going to add up to that broader goal. Make sure the goals you set at the individual level are still achievable and they’re directly tied to the broader goal you’re trying to achieve. By doing so, people know how they contribute, how they fit in, and you’re going to make sure that you hit those top-level goals if everybody hits their individual goals.
Want to learn more about setting goals? How about taking an entire course on it? Go directly to the course and start learning how to set better goals. The entire course is available at LinkedIn Learning. Enjoy!
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Our reader poll today asks: How much has your organization’s strategy shifted in the last 12 months?
Significantly: We’re going in a brand new direction. 20.8%
Somewhat: We’ve got a few major shifts but are staying on course. 34.4%
Not very: We’re generally headed in the same direction with a couple of adjustments. 36.2%
Not at all: We’re full speed ahead on our current path. 8.6%
Balancing consistency with agility. Unless there are large shifts in the market or in your organization, your strategy should remain consistent (assuming it’s working). Most of you report that you’re staying the course. For those who are undergoing major shifts, be sure you understand what is driving those changes. Change for the sake of change can doom a good strategy. If you’re not changing at all, take a moment to assess the market around you to ensure you’re not missing any big trends or risks that could affect your business down the road. Shifting during times of calm is much easier to do than when you’ve been caught unaware by a big change in the market.
Do you agree with these poll results? Let us know in the comments below!
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What you say, how you say it, and the medium you choose to communicate your message matter as much today as they did last century
Today’s post is by Luke Sheppard, Founder and Principle of Sheppard & Company, and author of Driving Great Results (CLICK HERE to get your copy).
In 1964, Marshall McLuhan coined the phrase “the medium is the message” in his book Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man. He made this comment at a time when text messaging, FaceTime, and Zoom calls were but fragments of imagination in the pages of a Robert Heinlein novel.
There were far fewer communication mediums in the 1960s than today, though McLuhan’s phrase still has merit.
What you say, how you say it, and the medium you choose to communicate your message matter as much today as they did in the middle of the last century. In this post are the three factors you need to consider when selecting a medium for your message if you want to have the desired impact. Read more
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Our reader poll today asks: What is your greatest fear when giving team members a task they’ve not done before?
They’ll mess it up and I’ll have to fix it. 20.4%
They’ll need too much of my time and guidance. 21.3%
They’ll get frustrated and morale will drop. 12.2%
They’ll be wildly successful and outshine me. 3.8%
I am fearless. This is how they learn. 42.2%
Fear versus no fear. You folks are pretty evenly split as to whether you’re afraid of your team members making mistakes and either having to fix them or invest too much time in helping them versus having no fear at all. For the former group, this is how your people learn. Start with giving less risky projects and tasks. Build extra time into timelines to allow for slower work. Focus on the fact that you’re building their skills instead of focusing too much on task perfection. For those of you with no fear, ask if you’re pushing your team members enough. Maybe the reason you’re not afraid is you’re not stretching them enough and actually taking a risk on their development. To find out if that’s the case, ask them what they’re prepared to take on. If their request makes you a little uneasy, then you know you’re operating in growth territory.
Do you agree with these poll results? Let us know in the comments below!
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Why core values are a necessary ingredient for success in your business or career, and the steps you can take right now discover your personal core values.
One of the greatest frustrations in life is the realization that we have spent, or are currently spending, significant time and energy doing something that doesn’t fulfill us. How we respond to this feeling can become the turning point for our entire career.
Maybe you have worked in a job that made you feel bored, or even demoralized. Maybe you’ve been in a professional environment dictated by principles and standards that just felt wrong to you, even if you couldn’t articulate why. You may have even found yourself in a leadership role where you were unable to be yourself and struggled to hold your team accountable as a result.
I’ve experienced all of this in my own career. In 2005, I was working at a startup where the company’s leadership left people demotivated. I realized I could never be happy in that type of environment and made the choice to Read more
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Our reader poll today asks: When you find yourself with extra time on your hands, do you have a list of nonurgent projects you can immediately turn to?
Yes. I know exactly what I’ll do with the newfound free time. 64.22%
Kind of. I have a general sense of projects in waiting. 32.42%
No. I have no idea what I’d do with free time. 3.36%
Ready for free time. The vast majority of you have a plan for when you have that “found” free time. Bravo! There’s no time wasted wondering what to start working on when you have a free t0 minutes, hour, day, or week. There’s no need to spend time prioritizing either. You can just get to work. If you’re in the 32% who are a little less rigorous on maintaining such a list, give it a try. Call it your back-burner projects. Break it into groups of things you can do in an hour, a day, or a week. List items in priority order. When the time frees up, jump to your list and dig in! Many folks are realizing right now how valuable such a list can be when they suddenly have a lot more time on their hands.
Do you agree with these poll results? Let us know in the comments below!
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