He says that being strategic is to possess insight that leads to advantage. Strategic is the opposite of unstrategic that includes:
Wondering aimlessly, lacking direction, getting lost in the weeds.
Doing everything, lacking the discipline to say no, and trying to be all things to all customers, both internally and externally.
Conducting meetings that take conversations down rabbit holes that cause widespread frustration amongst the members of your group.
Fortunately,
the book provides you with the blueprint for navigating those hurdles while
being able to take a truly strategic approach to all facets of your business.
Specifically, you’ll learn about Horwath’s Strategic
Quotient (SQ), a validated assessment tool which evaluates an individual’s
ability to lead and think strategically. The SQ evaluates a leader’s current
mindset and behaviors using the “3A Framework” – acumen, allocation, action.
It identifies the building blocks of a strategic leader and pinpoints areas for
improvement to help individuals reach their full potential.
With Horwath’s guidance, leaders will master the four
dimensions of strategic fitness that contribute to executive performance:
Strategy Fitness: Ability to understand and develop
strategy, set direction, allocate resources, make decisions, and create
competitive advantage.
Leadership Fitness: Leadership philosophy, personal
performance, mental training, and ability to master time and calendar.
Organization Fitness: Ability to create the appropriate
business structure, evolve the business model, develop talent while planning
for succession, and innovate.
Communication Fitness: How to facilitate
conversations, conduct effective collaboration, bring value to customers, and
lead productive meetings.
Some of my favorite takeaways from the book include:
Strategic plans should clearly describe where the business
is today, where it’s going, and how it’s going to get there. Inherent in that
description is what you choose to do and—equally important—what you choose not
to do.
If your strategic plan is long, complicated, and not
crystallized into a usable one- to two-page document, then there is work to be
done. The longer the plan, the less likely it is to be updated with new insights
and remain a relevant compass for your strategic direction.
A company is only as good as its people. People are only as
good as their actions. And actions are only as good as the thinking behind
them.
The best leaders practice the concept of servant leadership
by ensuring their people are equipped with the knowledge, skills, and tools to
effectively perform their functions.
It takes a confident leader to invest a larger chunk of
time exploring the right question to frame the challenge. As Albert Einstein
espoused: “If I had an hour to solve a problem, I’d spend 55 minutes thinking
about the problem and five minutes thinking about solutions.”
Rich Horwath
Today, Horwath shared these additional insights with us:
Question: Of the three unstrategic sins, which one
plagues organizations and their leaders the most and why?
Horwath: Killing meetings. 83% of executives we surveyed
said that their meetings were an unproductive use of time. If your car or
television worked less than 20% of the time, would you keep them? People
tolerate unproductive meetings because they become part of the culture—no
agenda, starting late, people multitasking, and nothing decided.
Question: What is the primary takeaway you want readers
to have after they have read your book?
Horwath: If you don’t increase your strategic
fitness, you and your business will fail. To think, plan, and act strategically
simply requires awareness, discipline, and focus—all of which are in short
supply where the crack cocaine of the business world is multitasking. Both
flood the brain with dopamine, provide a brief high, and kill your
productivity.
Question: What is the best first action to take for a business
leader to become more strategic and to follow your book's advice?
Horwath: I define strategic as possessing insight
that leads to advantage. The first step then to being strategic is to
continuously be discovering insights. An insight is a learning that leads to
new value. Hold yourself and your team accountable for generating, recording,
and sharing one to three insights per week, and then find a place to house them
in the future so you’re continually building your foundation of expertise.
With practical tools and dozens of real-world examples, Strategic
shows you how to be more than tactical―and how to be truly strategic.
There’s no better time than now to read this book.
Thank you to the book’s publisher for sending me an advance
copy of the book.
Comments
Post a Comment