An Attitude of Success
As I started writing this blog, I was flying in a 737 to watch my youngest daughter, Abby, play in the ECNL girls soccer national tournament. This year, we are fortunate that it is being held in San Diego. Their team, U17, Portland Thorns Club, are competing to be in the final eight of 48 teams to advance to Virginia.
We do not know what will happen in the next 3 to 4 games. However, confidence can have a significant impact on the results.
Confidence can often be a key factor between success and failure. After coaching 20+ winning seasons of youth sports, sometimes you could ‘feel’ that you would win the game before it started. However, there were other times when the players had already ‘decided’ before the game, that they could not win because the other team looked bigger or more athletic. And sure enough, we rarely won those games.
Overconfidence can have its own problem. Past success has a direct correlation to confidence. Therefore, this confidence may lead teams to prepare with less focus than they did in the past. They feel they just show up and win. An opponent may show up with more effort, a better strategy, or perhaps will take advantage of the right opportunity, and they will upset the favored team.
The Paradox of Strategy
This is the battle that I have to deal with in strategic planning. 90% of the strategic plans fail to meet ⅔ of their strategic objectives. However, they may feel successful because part of their strategies created value from the previous year. Most organizations do not track the full ROI of ALL the strategies over the long-run. It’s like going to Vegas to bragging about the big winning sports bet; but failing to remember they walked away with less money than they started.
Strategic Leaders
Strategic leaders often leave a retreat with a sense of confidence. They may self-proclaim, this year is going to be different. However, by the time they return to the office on Monday, they wrap themselves in the ‘busyness’ of work. It’s hard to change your habits and trying something new. There is risk and potential failure that your ideas will not be achieved.
Therefore, it is far easier to push it that plan down the road when things get easier. Plus, we are still having labor shortages, inflation, interest rates, supply chain challenges, remote working, etc. We will wait until things get better.
Two Types of Clients
I typically work with clients with in two different scenarios.
Client A: The Confident ‘Next Level’ Client
The first type of client are those who want to accelerate their rate of growth to the next level. This is often a ‘fun’ exercise with a ‘high-level’ of confidence because they already in a successful mind set. Our execution rate with this group is consistently in the Top 10%.
The hardest challenge that I have with this group is ‘focus’. We need to ‘focus’ on the essential few strategies which are going to have the biggest impact on the outcome. They tend to believe they have the ‘Midas’ touch and everything will turn to gold. Unfortunately, that is not how the real world works, and there will often have many smaller failures that are overlooked by their core business success. There is a lot of money that can be saved to the bottom line with the right amount of focus. The ‘shiny object’ syndrome can be very expensive and often hidden if the management team is unwilling to track the ROI on these opportunities.
Even the most successful companies will face an economic downturn, technological transformation, or a new competitive strategy that takes away market share. The core business will struggle and that is when the shiny objects have to be thrown away.
The secondary challenge, what made them successful in the past, will not necessarily make them successful in the future. We often have to change our People, Process, and Systems, to make it to the Next Level. Are they willing to make those changes?
The good news is when a client has a clear strategic focus, consistently measuring ROI on the few critical strategic initiatives, they tend to have more success on the bottom line. These clients will get to the next level and get through the economic downturn with confidence. This confidence leads to business opportunities with cheaper assets, companies, and human resources to use in your next strategic growth stage.
Strategic Facilitation | Captain Strategy Course
If you are this ‘Next Level’ client and need a facilitator to stay focused on successful strategies for the rest of 2023 and beyond, email carljcox@40strategy.com. Our next available in person facilitation are already filling up this fall. Connect with us now to reserve a spot.
Good news, we have designed an 8-week, one-hour live Captain Strategy Master Class. Our next course starts Monday, August 7th. The cohort is capped to 8-entrepreneurs/executives.
Imagine how one focused strategy hour, per week, can make a difference for you or your company.
Email Operations Director, Tonya Smith, admin@40strategy.com, to reserve a spot.
(And yes, we will incorporate AI/ChatGPT into this course.)
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The bad news, is when a company does not track its ROI and overspends on its strategies, they will get into a distressed situation.
This overconfidence may turn them into the Client B: “Turn Around” Client.
Next week we will talk about this…
Highlights of the Week
Our youngest Abby turned 17 and my high school sweetheart just shared our 27th anniversary! |
