#1 - Understand Needs & Pain Points

I want to introduce you to a really useful framework for thinking about business and it comes from a book called "Conscious Business: How To Build Value Through Values" by Fred Kofman. Fred talks about how every business has three dimensions; he refers to that as “I, it and we.” So really, "It" refers to a business's ability to meet its goals, to achieve its vision and to fulfill its mission. "We" refers to the relationships that exist within an organization and whether there is a community that's built on mutual trust, respect and solidarity within the organization. And "I" refers to whether individuals within the organization feel a sense of wellbeing, fulfillment and meaning as they're going about their daily jobs.

For the purposes of our conversation today, I'm going to refer to "It" as the business, I'm going to refer to "We" as the team and I'm going refer to "I" as you, simply because I'm going to be addressing you during the session. Why are we even talking about this framework? And what does this mean in terms of relevance to strategic planning.

Usually, when we all get to strategic planning, we have one of the three as our default lenses through which we approach strategic planning. For example, if you're a leader in an organization, the chances are that you are thinking about strategic planning from the lens of the business. You're asking yourself questions like, “How do we make more money? What will make shareholders happy?” This does not mean that you aren’t looking at the other lenses, but just that this is your primary lens of approaching strategic planning. Similarly, if you are a team leader or a people manager, the chances are, you're thinking, “How do I keep my team happy? What can I do to develop my staff?” And if you are an individual contributor, the chances are, you're really thinking from the standpoint of your own long-term career of growth; questions like, “What do I want? How do I influence the cross-functional team I am a part of? “

It's not that any of these lenses are wrong; they're all important, but, what I'm here to propose to you today, is that for effective strategic planning, you need to become aware of what your default lens is and to expand your understanding of the other two lenses, so that you can plan effectively.

And so, let's look at how we understand what the needs and pain points of each of these three lenses, are. We'll first start with the business lens. Now, when I'm talking about the business, whose needs am I really referring to? I'm talking about the shareholder or investor needs, the board's needs, C-suite's needs. You may be wondering, “Wait a minute, isn't the business supposed to be meeting customer needs?” And you're right if that thought crossed your mind, because no business can be successful if it does not meet the needs of its customer, but at the same time, if you think about it as, “There is a relationship between your business and the customer”, it needs to be an equal relationship where your business is not just meeting the customer's needs, but its own needs, the organization's needs. That's the only way you're able to not just have a successful organization, but a sustainable one where you're not just meeting the customer needs, but also meeting your own business needs.

For the purposes of our conversation today, I'm going to really focus on how you identify the needs of the business. When you look at the business, there are usually two broad buckets under which we could place the “needs”. One is, “What are basic needs of the business?” And the other is, “What are unique needs of your business?” So basic needs are making money, spending less, increasing our market share or reducing our risk, (if you're a for profit private organization, irrespective of which industry you belong to). And these are just some examples, it's not a comprehensive list in any way, but gives you an example of needs that are common across industries and organizations. If you're non-profit or you belong to a governmental organization, instead of making money, a basic need of yours may be, “How can I have more impact or reach more people through my work?”

Similarly, there are unique needs that organizations have, which will be specific to each organization. Examples of unique needs are: innovation - Tesla and Google pride themselves on innovation as being a unique need of theirs. Similarly, customer satisfaction is a unique need. Zappos is a great example of a company that says, “Customer happiness matters first, no matter what.”

Balancing purpose and profit is another example of a unique need, especially if you are a certified B Corporation. An example is TOMS Shoes; this organization donates a pair of shoes to somebody in need in some part of the world for every pair of shoes that's bought from them. That is really important to them and as you can see the pattern here, unique needs really differ completely from organization to organization.

So, how do you find the unique needs of your organization? You look to the values of your organization; for example, if, you're looking at Whole Foods, they care about the environment and community. If you look at Amazon, one of their values is frugality. So, you can see how the unique needs of these organizations could be different because of the values that they have.

Similarly, if you look at size and maturity, if you're a start-up versus if you're part of a really established giant in an organization, then the needs that you're going to have are going to be very different. For example, if you are part of a VC funded start-up, even before you get to creating a product, one of your unique needs would be to first prove that there is a market for your product. Similarly, you can look at business model of your organization. If you are working for, let's say, an Airbnb versus if you're working for one of the hotels, like Radisson or Marriott, the needs are going to be very different.

The last lens that I'm going to propose today is industry-specific context, which is, “What is the specific context of the industry that you're a part of?” For example, COVID-19 today has impacted all industries and organizations without a doubt, but if you're working for a grocery store, the chances are that your sales have gone up. But, if you're working for, let's say, a gym, the chances are that your sales have gone down. The needs of a grocery store versus a gym would be very different and it’s important to look at the different ways of identifying them.

A tip that I will give you, if you would like some clarity on where to find these unique needs is also to look at what kind of communication comes from your senior management. That could be through emails, that could be through what gets discussed at town halls; watch out for themes that get discussed repeatedly; watch out for what is new in terms of, “Is there a new goal?” For example, maybe they want to be a market leader in a specific category; it really helps to keep an eye out for the kind of communication that's coming from your senior management.

We've now covered whose needs are we talking about when we talk about the business - what are those needs and how do you find those needs? We're now going to do something similar for the team and for you. Let's look at the team: whose needs are we talking about when we refer to the team? The initial thought, which I'm sure most of you are clear on by now, is not the case when we talk about the team. We think about the immediate team with whom we're working with, where we all report to the same manager.

But here, when we think about “We”, as Fred Kofman puts it, or “The Team”, as we are looking at it, we're really referring to every single stakeholder that we may work with at different points during our time in our organization; that could include your managers, it could include your manager's managers, it could include your peers, whether it's in your own team or from different departments and functions, it could include your direct reports - what kind of needs are we talking about when we say, “Understanding the needs of your team.”

As you're working together on a project, for example, you want to understand, “Do we have a shared vision that we are all clear on and that we are working towards? Are we all clear about each of our expectations and priorities when we are working together? Are there processes that are streamlined and good enough that allow us to function at our optimal best? Are there gaps in communication as we work together with these different people?” And last but not the least, “Are there ways in which we could improve our collaboration and support each other better?”

Again, these are some examples, but how do you really go about finding the team's needs? You do that by, one, putting yourself in their shoes, where you think, “Wait a minute, I'm only coming from the lens of how I'm seeing this situation, how could they be viewing this situation?” And the other is to ask them, because at the end of the day, none of us is a mind reader, none of us really knows what other challenges they’re facing or aspirations and perspective that they're sitting on. So, unless we ask them, we're really functioning from a place of my perspective plus my assumption of their perspective. Ask, ask, ask, I couldn't stress that more.

The next is, “You” and obviously, here we are talking about your needs. This doesn't need to be explained further, but I will share some samples of your needs. Just humour me. You may already be familiar with these being some potential needs, but just so that we know what we're talking about. Examples of your needs could be, you know, ”What is the kind of impact that I want to have in my organization? What is the kind of influence that I'm looking to have? Am I happy doing the work that I'm doing? Is the work challenging enough for me? Do I have opportunities for growth in the organization?” And, you know, “Do I have good work-life balance?” I do recognize that, you know, work-life balance is somewhat of a controversial term to use nowadays, but you know, if that's a need for you, then that's what it is, right.

Now, I'm also going to talk to you about how do you identify your needs? And here you may really be wondering, “Why is this slide even there?” And that's because I've worked with a lot of clients where, as we dive deeper, they realize, “I want to get much more clearer about what really matters to me. What are my needs? What are my wants?”

There are different ways in which you could really approach that, but I'm sharing with you one simple activity, which I've found to be really effective when I've used it with my clients; that is simply to list for yourself, three different five-year plans. The first plan is where you see yourself at the end of five years if you continue doing exactly what you're doing now and continue with the same kind of learning curve, whatever it is, right? It's the default future that you're headed towards if you continue doing what you're doing as of today.

The second five-year plan is what the name says, it is your “Plan B”, which is what you want to be doing versus what you see yourself doing in five years from now, if planning or a default future was suddenly no longer an option for you? And the third five-year plan to come up with is one where you can really have fun with it, if you had a magic wand and no restrictions whatsoever; you didn't have a limit on resources, time, energy, money, then what's the kind of life you'd want to be living in five years from now?

And the intent of thinking through these different five-year plans is not necessarily to pick one or the other, but it's really to get clarity for yourself on what's getting you most excited about each of these plans and hence get a clearer picture of your most important needs. It's great, of course and there are times where my clients say, “You know what, I realized that the direction I'm headed in right now is perfect for me.” And that's a wonderful insight to have for yourself, it's great to pick out those things and say, “You know what, I like this aspect of plan A and this aspect of plan B and this aspect of plan C and hence, these are what my needs are.

#5 - Refine Your Strategy Using SMART Framework (with Examples!)

Now, once you have arrived at that one strategy, you want to refine it. What do I mean by refine the strategy? You want to be using the SMART framework, which many of you may be familiar with, looking at how clear and well-defined your strategy is. How measurable is my strategy? Because you can't really have a competition without a scorecard, right? You still need to be able to measure the progress and whether you're on track or not.

You want to be making sure that your strategy is defined in a manner where it's focused, clear and well-defined; where it is measurable, where it is achievable. Ideally, again, with achievable, I'm not referring to if it’s realistic with respect to your current capability, but with your capability to build, is it achievable?

Is it relevant? Which ideally if you've done step one and two well, and your strategy is sitting at the center of the three needs, then it's already met the relevant category. And lastly, you want to make sure that your strategy is time-bound. Because unless you're very clear about the timeline, the chances are that it may not be very successful, which may be a bit demoralizing.

I’ll share an example of how to take a strategy that you've picked and refine it: you're working for a business where innovation is seen as key for growth and differentiation, especially in times like these. There are many people within your organization who have ideas, because in their day-to-day work, they've come across instances where things could be improved, but they don't really know how to scale their ideas through the organization. You yourself are part of an innovation team and you're working on many projects with respect to innovation, but you feel that your impact is limited. You feel that you're unable to have as much impact as you'd like to, if more of the organization was involved in your innovation projects.

So, an example of a strategy that you've come up with because of the “three needs,” is to lead the creation of an online platform that increases the innovation pipeline for the organization. This is a win because it allows the business to have more innovative projects in the pipeline; it's a win for people because they can contribute to this online platform and it's a win for you because you want to have a larger impact. Having a platform where people can work together is going to be quite helpful.

Now, this is a strategy in its basic form but we still want to be refining it. What is really missing in the strategy? It is already relevant because it's sitting at the center of the “three needs” and we've already done the shortlist process, which means you already see it as achievable. So, you know the strategy is relevant and achievable, but you don't know how to measure it. What's the timeline that you're working with? What exactly is this platform going to be doing?

You refine it by first adding a timeline like this. You say, “I’m going to lead the creation of an online platform that increases the innovation pipeline for the organization by 3x in 2 years.” So we're very clear about how you will know if this platform has been successful and also, when we need to have met this impact. Now, “What is this platform going to be doing specifically? The platform will, one, teach innovation. It'll allow teams to collaborate on projects and it'll allow teams to pitch solutions for internal funding.” So now you're very clear, you know, this goal is an example that is specific, measurable, achievable, relevant and time-bound.

So, I hope you're feeling good by now because we actually have a very well-defined strategy that we're sitting with, now we just need to be execute it. Before we do that, one thing that I like to remind myself is that none of us is a superhero and we can't do all of this by ourselves; we are going to need the collaboration of different people. We're going to want to break down this big strategy, which can be in the distant future to, “What are tangible bits that I can act on today?”