Strategic Thinking is the Key to Any Sized Firm

Nothing is more important about your organization than its future. After all, that's where you will be spending the rest of your life. Small firm owners, ENR Top 500 executives, engineers, architects and other design and construction executives should be more concerned about where, their organizations are going than where they have been.

Creative strategic thinking as a management tool is not reserved just for the General Electrics and the IBMs of this world. It is important to all businesses, no matter what their size. The principles, key questions and processes involved in making a strategic plan remain the same, regardless of the size of the business enterprise. The only real difference is in the degree of sophistication. No matter if an organization is small, medium or large, the responsibility for visualizing, initiating and achieving future objectives rests with business own­ers and/or management of the firm.

It is a simple truth that any size of business can benefit from investing time thinking about the future, including normal growth expectations, possible expansion into new markets, new services, management succession and the unexpected, impossible‑to‑predict events that seem to crop up with astonishing regularity. As good as you are today, you must be better in the future.

You will improve your business and future via strate­gic planning by asking yourself a set of fundamental questions. These planning questions will force you to focus on results rather than be caught in the activity trap. The result orientation will help you think through what you want to accomplish before you act. As you may be aware, action without thought is the downfall of many golf shots.

The key question in strategic planning is, "Where do we want to be in the future and what types of risks are we willing to take to get us there?" The answers to this key question lie in the consideration of the following queries:

1. What are the four or five key assumptions about the total environment of your organization?

Clarify and evaluate the most important internal and external forces (many frequently beyond your control) that will affect your ability to accomplish your job. Then consider how these forces will affect your mission, your business, your services, your competition and your operations. This in turn, will help you do a comprehensive analysis of every major competitor in every key market. The type and amount of data support­ing the questions will vary, depending on your size and sophistication.

2. What are you doing to position your organization in the client's minds eye now and in the future vis‑a‑vis the competition?

In a complex, changing, and unpredictable environ­ment, it is impossible to plan without the use of assump­tions. Consequently, your team must share the same estimates of the future. Given agreement about the future, you are ready to examine the needs, wants and expectations of your clients. Is it going to be business as usual for you, or will you become more aggressive by trying to increase your market share via positioning?

Positioning is what you do to the mind of your clients. You have to communicate with the words, feel­ings and the medium that will reach your receivers. You have to shape your message to get an emotional response. You have to get inside your client's mind and see his or her perception of things . Perception is more important than reality. You must take this concept and see things through the mind's eye of your clients. Don't focus on your capabilities or services, but on the problem to be solved inside the client=s mind.

3. What are your strategic options, and how will your key competitors respond to your actions?

In answering questions one and two you looked at your internal/external environment and developed a plan about positioning your business on the client and on a competitor. Now it is time to think through the possi­ble reactions of your competitors. Isaac Newton said that for every action there is a reaction. His words are also true in the marketplace. Once you have developed options to possible reactions of your competition, you will be in a position to respond quickly to any decision of your competitors. Having analyzed the situation, you also will be disciplined enough to take the appropriate steps.

4. What are the two, three or four critical actions you will take during this new planning year?

Unless you have a philosophy of continuous improvement, your competitors will pass you by. As I said before, planning will force you to become results‑oriented. What will you do differently this year to produce results? Simply take out a single sheet of paper and list the key actions your organization will take this year. Who said strategic planning is difficult? Just remember to involve your key people in your thinking. They must understand the strategic plan and feel ownership in it.

Again, size makes little difference, though planning methodology will be simplest in smaller organizations. Remember, if you fail to plan, you are planning to fail.


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