Building a strategy and two-headed monsters

Releasing Agility Masterclass on strategy

Hi,

I hope you are doing safe and well.

In today's masterclass I'm going to cover building a strategy by identifying obstacles and building a plan.

I'm also going to introduce a friendly two-headed monster (with my face..sorry!) And, as promised in the last email, there is also a poem about strategy at the end of this email. (Enable images for this post to get the most from it).

A strategy is essential for Releasing Agility.

People must know what it is they are releasing agility towards and how the work they do contributes to this bright future.

In my field of work I see lots of strategies and most are extremely poor. They are often a wish codified into a document, or the leader’s personality documented in a PowerPoint.

An effective strategy has three things:

1. A clear painted picture of the future

2. An honest look at the current reality (or starting point)

3. A plan to bridge the gap between the two.

We’ve covered point 1 in the last masterclass, and we’ll cover points 2 and 3 in this email. Before that though, let’s talk about a two-headed monster (a friendly one….i.e. your company/team/department)

If monsters aren’t your thing, then here are some other two-headed animals.

The Two-Headed Monster

When I work with leaders and managers I describe their company/team/department as a friendly monster with two heads. Don’t worry - I’ve never had a leader not laugh at this.

One head is business goals: the very things that keep the business alive (think revenue, growth, cash, customer acquisition, market share). The other head is the system of work (think staff retention, behaviours, culture, communication, wellbeing etc).

Both heads often compete for energy, time and attention (and money). They sometimes work well with each other – and when they do, you’ve got it right. They require different things to eat (metaphorically). But ultimately they are both sustaining the same monster. They are both, ultimately, the business itself.