Page 63 - HBR Leader's Handbook: Make an Impact, Inspire Your Organization, and Get to the Next Level

Developing a Strategy 53

So what are the essential steps? What is the best way to find the right
balance, on the one hand, between analysis and deliberation to make the
right choices, and on the other, embracing speed, flexibility, and openness
to adaptation, suited to today’s faster and more unpredictable climate?

Developing a process to make your strategic choices

You don’t frame and make such strategic choices in a vacuum. You iden-
tify and shape them through a deliberate problem-solving process, work-
ing with others, over time. Even if strategy making now happens faster,
more informally, and more flexibly than previous planning-intensive ap-
proaches, some methodological discipline will sharpen your thinking and
structure your learning. Let’s walk through some typical problem-solving
steps to help you develop the right choices of a winning strategy.

Step 1. Set the stage
First, be clear what you’re generally trying to accomplish with your strat-
egy making and how you want to go about it. Start with a simple checklist
of key questions and tasks to guide your journey.

• Purpose. Why generally are you developing a new strategy?
What’s driving the need or opportunity to do that? Do you need a
fresh approach to achieving your vision, or do you have a new vi-
sion? Your strategy should begin by answering a simple powerful
question about the intent of your effort.
At PBS, Kerger helped focus Rotenberg’s desire to expand the
children’s market with a new kids’ channel by asking if there was a
need for that and, if so, could the network viably do it on its own?

• Audience and stakeholders. Who will the strategy potentially
benefit, who must be involved in developing it, and who must ulti-
mately approve it? Key stakeholders might be, for example, major
influencers in the organization, board members, or frontline peo-
ple who would have to be centrally involved in delivering the strat-
egy. It might also, later if not sooner, include customers, partners,