Why Strategies Fail After They Are Written

Four reasons, and each has a check you can run before you start.

1. Nothing was stopped

A plan that adds five initiatives to a year already fully committed will deliver none of them.

The check: does your plan contain a stop list? If it names what to start and not what to stop, the capacity does not exist and everyone involved already knows it.

2. Nobody owns it

"The team will focus on customer retention" means nobody is responsible.

The check: does every item have one name against it? Not a department. A person.

3. It was never converted into this quarter

A three-year direction with no first quarter is a statement of intent.

The check: what changes in the next 90 days, specifically, and how would you know it happened?

4. Nobody looks at it again

The most common failure. The document is produced, everyone agrees, and it is opened again eleven months later.

The check: is there a date in the diary for the review? If not, there is no review.

The financial check people skip

Every strategic choice has a number, and the number is usually available in your own ledger.

Growing a service line: what is its margin after direct costs?
Winning more of a customer type: what does it cost to serve them? Growth generally: what is the cash gap per job multiplied by the volume? A hire: what does the role produce, and how long to competence?

A strategy that has not had these calculated is a set of intentions with a cover page.

The one that matters most

Growth without a funding plan.

Growth consumes cash before it produces it. You pay for staff, stock and delivery before the customer pays you.

A plan to double revenue with no answer on funding is a plan to run out of money faster. This is the most common way a good strategy destroys a viable business.

What a usable strategy looks like

One page.

What we are good at. Who we want more of. What we are stopping. What has to be true. What would tell us it is not working.

Then, per quarter, three things with names and dates against them.

The review that keeps it alive

Fifteen minutes quarterly.

Did we stop what we said we would stop? Are the assumptions still true? What do the numbers say?

Most strategies are not wrong. They are abandoned without anyone deciding to abandon them.

Where we fit

We produce the numbers behind the choices. Margin by line, customer profitability, and the cash requirement for a growth plan.