Page 78 - HBR Leader's Handbook: Make an Impact, Inspire Your Organization, and Get to the Next Level

68 HBR Leader’s Handbook

• Strategic fit. The concept of strategic fit is elusive but impor-

tant—making sure the strategy is designed and tailored to do
what your organization does better than others, accords with
your culture and values, and calls on internal capabilities that
are well aligned with the external needs you are serving. When
the parts of your strategy fit together seamlessly and naturally, it
works like a self-amplifying system, providing what some strategy
experts have called “a coherence premium” (see Paul Leinwand
and Cesare Manardi’s HBR article “The Coherence Premium”).

• Continuity over time. Though strategies inevitably require new
thinking and new ways of working, changing too much or too
quickly can undermine success, too. Innovation should not burn
all bridges with your heritage, lest you confuse customers or undo
the trust on which your future relationships will depend.

As you start to formulate different options, you’ll feel the risks and
pressure to make the right choices. Careful analysis and using the right
filters will be critical, but bear in mind that going from “where we are” to
“where we want to be” can’t be achieved only by rational calculation. You
can’t analyze your way into some brilliant new way of operating, nor can
you surely predict what new product or service is going to take off and help
your organization soar. Improve your chances of success by also consider-
ing less tangible factors, for example, how urgent the need for a new strat-
egy may be; whether the timing is right to make a big change or it’s better to
wait until later; how emotionally ready your team is to undertake a certain
new strategy idea versus another; the potential ripple effects—both posi-
tive and negative—on the organization beyond your own unit or operating
group; whether you have the talent on board to do what’s needed, and if
not, whether you can find and hire them quickly enough; and whether you
yourself have enough confidence and strength to do what’s needed. Which
now brings us to you and your leadership role in getting to final decisions
and action.