Using online business strategy development and execution tools to increase collaboration

The digital revolution is transforming almost every aspect of almost every business. As strategists, it is important to remain abreast of these trends in order to be able to advise our employers or clients appropriately.

But there is one aspect of the digital revolution we often overlook. And that is how digital can change the way we do strategy itself.

Most strategy processes still boil down to circulating large Powerpoint decks or Word documents by email. Just like we did 30 years ago.

Fortunately, that is now starting to change. StratNavApp.com is an online business strategy development and execution tool designed to:

ensure best practice,
improve consistency,
increase collaboration, and
leverage the power of AI in your strategy processes.

StratNavApp.com is arranged around a unique Strategy Board. This brings together the 4 core stages of the strategy development and execution cycle:

Analysis
Articulation
Planning
Control

Analysis

The Analysis module is all about understanding the current situation and anticipated future(s). This includes the organisation's

operating model: capabilities, strengths and weaknesses,
as well as its
operating environment: competition and industry forces and trends.

This understanding provides the WHY of your strategy.

StratNavApp provides a number of tools for doing this, such as:

The Business Model Canvas. Summarise exactly how the business works (Learn more.)
Porter's Value Chain analysis. Understanding how the organisation uses its operating model to create value. (Learn more.)
McKinsey 7S analysis. Understand the internal factors which lead to success. (Learn more.)
PESTEL analysis. Understand the Political, Economic, Socio-economic, Technological, Environmental and Legal trends. (Learn more.)
Porter's 5 Forces analysis. Understanding the forces that shape competition in your industry. (Learn more.)
Strategy Canvas. Compare and contrast how different competitors win customers. Differentiate your the organisation from the rest of the market. (Learn more.)
BCG Matrix. Understand how different products and services in a portfolio contribute value. (Learn more.)
SWOT analysis. Summarise the organisation's Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats. (Learn more.)
Scenario Analysis. Deal with uncertainty. (Learn more.)

The different models are all integrated behind the scenes where this makes sense. For example, the insights generated in the other tools will automatically show up in your SWOT analysis. You can also attach them to processes in the Value Chain analysis, etc.

Articulation

The Articulation module is where you express WHAT your strategy is. StratNavApp.com allows you to articulate your

Vision,
Mission and
Values.

You can also set your strategic

Goals,
Objectives,
Key Performance Indicators (KPIs),
Targets and Actual Results

using a Balanced Scorecard framework.

The Scorecard provides a useful summary of your Goals, Objectives KPIs and Targets. (The scorecard is in the Control quadrant.) It also helps you identify any gaps in your strategy.

The Strategy House provides a handy summary of your strategy. This is particularly useful for communication.

Planning

The Planning module allows you to map out exactly HOW you plan to deliver your strategy.

Initiatives move through various stages, such as proposal, approval, delivery and completion.

You can also organise your Initiatives in:

a timeline or Gantt view.
a Three Horizons view, helping to ensure you strike the right balance between short, medium and long-term activities.

You can link Initiatives back to the Goals they support. And you can capture Cost and Benefit details.

The Goal/Initiative Matrix allows you to map your Initiatives to your Goals. It highlights

any Initiatives which don't explicitly support your Goals, or
any Goals which don't have any initiatives supporting them.

The Initiative RASCI helps you to ensure that the right people are involved in the right initiatives in the right roles.

The Initiative/Scenario Matrix helps you test the robustness of your initiatives against the uncertainties you identified in the Analysis phase.

Control

The Control module runs across the other modules. It provides tools to assist in the development and execution of your strategy. To make sure it actually gets done!

A RAID log allows you to record Risks, Actions, Issues and Decisions. You can also link these to your to the appropriate items within the other three modules. (Learn more.)

You can also record Stakeholders. These are either Individuals, Organisations or Generic Groups. Using a RASCI framework, you can map them as being either Responsible, Supporting, Accountable, Consulted or Informed for Goals, Initiatives or Actions.

The Meeting Manager allows you to plan and record all of your meetings. You can record which Stakeholders participated in which meetings. You can also record Agendas, Minutes, Actions and Decisions. The Actions and Decisions are automatically included in the RAID log. You can also then link them back to the relevant Insights, Goals and Initiatives, etc.

Lastly, the Scorecard provides a graphical summary of all of your KPI's Target and Actual Results. This allows you to easily track if your strategy is delivering. You can also feed this back into the ongoing Analysis and refinement of your strategy.

Collaboration

Collaboration is baked into StratNavApp at every step along the way.

To invite someone into your strategy project, simply enter their email address. StratNavApp will then email them with appropriate instructions which will then link them to your project. Only people you invite can see your strategy projects.

All changes are recorded, using a familiar legal red-lining approach where applicable. They also timestamped together with the author who made them. So you'll always know who did what and when. There is also a handy notes feature allowing teammates to annotate and comment on any element of your strategy. This ensures that all collaboration around your strategy remains attached to the strategy content to which it relates. No more trawling through email archives and old versions of documents to remember who said what when!

Once a day, StratNavApp will email you a summary of all the changes and notes your teammates have made, ensuring you're always up to date and engaged in the conversation.

Reporting, Search, File Archive & Multi-device

The Reporting module enables you to extract a snapshot strategic plan at any stage in your journey. Because it is a dynamic snapshot at a point in time, your strategic plan truly becomes a "living document", not an annual report which just sits on the shelf until next year.

You can also export your strategy plan into Strategy Markup Language (StratML). StratML is the ISO Standard XML Schema for Strategy and Performance Plans and Reports.

Your projects are also fully searchable, and available from any device connected to the internet, be it a PC, laptop, tablet or smartphone.

And you can upload files/documents and attach them to your analysis and initiatives. So the industry report you needed is always right there when you need it. And the business case spreadsheet is always attached to the initiative.

Give it a go, NOW

StratNavApp is free to use for up to three projects. If you want to do more than three projects, there is a subscription version available for a small monthly fee. Enterprise licenses are also available.

Why not click here to give it a go, now?

Data Analysis Lessons from "The implications of Brexit for monetary policy"

I recently attended Martin Weale's valedictory speech as a member of the Monetary Policy Committee (MPC), which was entitled: "The implications of Brexit for monetary policy", and was hosted by Resolution Foundation.

The session consisted of the speech itself, follow by panel comments from Sushil Wadhwani (economist and former MPC member), Chris Giles (Economics Editor at the Financial Times) and
Melanie Baker (UK economist at Morgan Stanley), followed by questions from the audience to the speaker and panel.

Martin Weale's speech was fascinating enough in its own right. However this is not a blog on economics or monetary policy, and so I will not even attempt to do it justice here. (If you're interested, you can read the speech itself here, and Resolution Foundation's write up of the event here.) Rather, I will pick up on two related points Sunil Wadhwani made in his remarks, and which I think have direct pertinence to business strategy.

1. Having the data is not enough

Martin showed two separate charts, one showing the weakening of the exchange rate, and the other showing the fall and recovery in the FTSE100 and the fall and not recovery in the FTSE250 immediately following the referendum. He suggested that the fall in the FTSE250 was more representative of sentiment regarding the UK because so much of the FTSE100 consisted of expected foreign earnings from multinationals with UK listings. He then suggested that the fall in the FTSE250 was not significant enough to allow one to draw conclusions (and did little more than confirm that "prices can go down as well as up").

Sunil countered that a better measure of confidence in the UK economy would be the FTSE250 in dollar terms. This had taken a pounding following the referendum, and painted a much more negative outlook than Martin had suggested. (This effectively combines the two charts.)

Whether you agree with Martin or Sunil, the exchange was a potent reminder that its not just what data you have, but also how you analyse it.

It reminded me of a project I worked on some years ago where the data we were seeing was showing a slight decline in the performance of a particular process. Because the decline appeared to be only slight it was not ringing any alarm bells (yet). However, I knew that the process (a) dealt with 6 discrete populations and (b) included a natural delay of some months. So I requested the underlying source data, and (1) split it into the populations, and (2) did a batch cohort analysis of each. This analysis revealed a much deeper - up to 50% for some populations - decline in process effectiveness. That definitely started the alarm bells ringing!

Yes, subtly improper analysis of data can render it very misleading!

2. You'll never have all of the data or analysis

Sunil further responded to Dr Weaver's conclusion that the data was still inconclusive by remarking that:

"You have to form judgments; because you are never as well informed as you would like to be; because the data is simply not there." (Tweet this!)

He went on to advise:

"Resist the temptation to wait for more data before acting. There will always be more data to wait for." (Tweet this!)

(That is my best recollection of the words that he used, but I cannot guarantee that it is verbatim.)

That is one of the key lessons I remember from the many case studies we did on my MBA programme. (I sometimes think that part of the objective of an MBA programme is to overload you with case studies and then put you on the spot in class in front of your peers to draw conclusions from what is inevitably inadequate data, as that is the closest they can get to what it feels like in real life within the classroom context!)

Its a lessons that has stood me in good stead ever since. In any strategic process, there is a time to collect more data, a time to conduct deeper analysis, and a time to accept that what you've got is good enough/as good as you're going to get and its time to make some decisions and move forward.

If you fail to learn that lesson, you invariable fall into 'paralysis by analysis': where data and analysis snowball and any chance of meaningful action falls by the wayside.

Conclusion

Data is a strategist's friend. It is the bedrock of analysis, reasoned decision making and feedback. But it is not without its pitfalls. Good use of data is as much an art as it is a science. And it is one every strategist does well to study carefully.

How to deal with chronic uncertainty (like Brexit) in business strategy

I've just read (yet another!) blog post advising business owners on what to do about Brexit. The conclusion: there is so much uncertainty about the outcome that business owners should just ignore it and carry on as if nothing had happened.

I have seldom heard such poor advice!

In the first instance, uncertainty is no excuse for burying your head in the sand. We live in uncertain times, and if it were, no-one would ever do anything. As a discipline, strategy has tried and tested ways of dealing with uncertainty.

Secondly, we now have significantly more information about the future than we had 3 weeks ago. To ignore that information would be myopic and foolish.

So, how does one deal with chronic uncertainty in a structured and proactive manner? Here is a 6-step approach:

1. Get the facts

After a referendum characterised by misinformation, it is important to remain appropriately informed. Key questions include:

What is the legal status of the referendum, and what, if anything could overturn it?
What is the actual process, steps to be taken, and timelines for leaving the EU?
Who are the decision makers and power brokers, in both the UK in Europe, and what are they saying and doing?
What models exist for subsequent engagement with the EU and what do they entail?

Ignorance breeds fear, so get informed.

2. Identify possible outcomes

Following the referendum, there are a number of possible outcomes. At the highest level, these might include:

The UK does not leave the EU.
The UK leaves the EU under favourable terms (so-called Brexit-light).
The UK leaves the EU under unfavourable terms.
The UK leaves the EU, followed by other countries exiting and ultimately, the collapse of the EU itself.
The UK splits, with Scotland remaining a part of the EU and the rest of the UK exiting.

There are, of course many other combinations and permutations which might be worthy of consideration. Whilst it is probably impractical to consider them all, it is important to consider a wide range of possible outcomes.

3. Understand the circumstances and implications of each possible outcome

Within each possible outcome, it is important to develop an understanding of:

What are the future developments and circumstances which might make that outcome more or less likely to emerge, and
What are the implications of that outcome, in general, and for your business specifically.

It is important to develop as vivid a narrative for each possible outcome as is possible. That is, write a plausible story for each outcome a logical chain of actions, events and their consequences. The more vivid the narrative, the more instructive it will be in planning your response.

4. Implement an early warning system

Once you've identified the circumstances which might make it more likely for one outcome to emerge than another, you need to use that as a lens for monitoring developments on an ongoing basis. Make specific people responsible for monitoring specific issues and reporting them to the broader group on a regular basis. Review all of your plans every time there is a major development. Know in advance when you intend to act, and when you intend to sit tight and watch.

Include relevant factors into your competitor analysis (see 7 straight-forward steps to master competitor analysis) to keep one step ahead of the competition.

5. Prepare plans in advance for the most likely outcomes

Don't wait for your early warning system to tell you that something has happened. It's too late to start planning then. Prepare contingency plans for each of the possible outcomes. Add more detail to your plans as events develop and some outcomes become more likely, leaving the plans for the less likely outcomes. You don't need to execute your plans now, but you do want to know in advance who will do what when key outcomes do emerge.

The plans you develop for each of the likely outcomes may be different to the normal plans you'd implement for, say, the implementation of a large system. Plans should emphasise "if this then that" logic, review and decision points and accountabilities, and clear criteria for deciding when to push forward and when to hold back.

You may find that from your plans there emerge some actions which you'd take in the event of many or all outcomes, which expand the options available to you, and/or which are relatively inexpensive to complete. You may then decide to proceed with these "no regrets" actions immediately.

6. Deal with the uncertainty now

The preceding 5 steps deal with planning ahead for what might happen. But there are also things that you could be doing to better cope with the uncertainty right now.

In the case of Brexit, there are at a number of likely immediate considerations:

How are you suppliers, distributors and customers responding? For example, if business partners (especially foreign ones) are less inclined to enter into long-term contracts because of the uncertainty, how could that impact your business and your existing plans for growth or expansion and how will you respond? What could you do to help your partners overcome any such reticence.
A Brexit will inevitably place a huge demand on legal, regulatory, compliance and strategy resources. Do you need need to secure resource in advance, or risk losing out when there is a mad rush at the last minute (as some experienced as the Solvency II deadline approached)? What regulatory or competitive initiatives will be put on hold as regulators and competitors divert resources to deal with their own Brexit plans, and what will you do with the breathing space that might offer?
What are you doing to re-assure your staff, customers and partners that

Chronic uncertainty certainly complicates strategy, but it also offers many opportunities. It is important not to get stunned into inaction, like a deer caught in the headlights. Proactivity remains key to success.

For a confidential conversation about what Brexit might mean for your business, or how to deal with uncertainty in general, please contact me.

7 steps to master competitor analysis for business strategy

A robust competitor analysis is an essential component of any strategy analysis.

There is a wealth of easily accessible information available on the Internet. And so it has never been easier to compile a successful competitor analysis.

However, without a plan, that wealth of information can seem like a fire hose. It can flood you with information. This can make it difficult to see the forest for the trees.

And competitors are continually changing and evolving. So competitor analysis must be an ongoing programme, rather than a one-off exercise.

This article outlines a simple plan to help focus and sustain your competitor analysis effort.

1. Identify your competitors

This may seem almost too obvious to mention. But depending on your industry, it can be quite difficult to identify exactly who your competitors are.

Your competitors are anyone your customers could turn to, other than your business, to solve the problem or fill the need you aim to solve or fill for them.

(Note: Some writers sometimes distinguish between direct competitors and indirect substitutes. But for the purposes of this article, we consider these to be the same.)

In fast-moving industries, it is easy to be caught unawares by the entry and sudden growth of a competitor before you were even fully aware of their presence.

Industries with rapidly changing consumer preferences may be particularly susceptible to substitution. For example, competition for a local restaurant might not come only from other restaurants, but also from a local grocery store stocking ready meals.

Knowing your local market well may no longer be enough. The Internet can make it easier for competitors to come at you from almost anywhere in the world.

One way to identify competitors is to talk to people. Your staff/colleagues may have worked at your competitors or know people who do. Your customers and suppliers may also do business with your competitors. Or they may have been marketed or pitched to by them.

These conversations can be in the form of formal research or just casual conversation.

Trade bodies, shows and publications, where available, are another source of valuable intel.

2. Segment your competitors

Once you've identified your competitors (and possible substitutes) you may find you end up with quite a long list. If your list is too long, and you try to analyse them all, you may find that you are unable to do justice to any of them.

The solution is to segment them. There are two different ways you can approach this.

Divide your competitors into different groups which behave similarly. Then you can simply monitor one or two competitors within each group and extrapolate your analysis to the group at large.

There is clearly an inherent risk here. So it is important to confirm your groupings from time to time.
Divide your competitors into high, medium and low groups depending on how much of a competitive threat they represent. You would then do a more thorough analysis of the first group and a more cursory analysis of the third group.

Part of your analysis of all three groups will, of course, be to confirm that they are still in the right group and to move them if necessary.

Avoid the temptation to put all of them in the high group. That rather defeats the purpose. Try and force yourself towards 1:2:3 splits.

3. Know what's important to your customers

Once you know who your competitors are, what are you actually looking for? Studying any competitor without a clear plan of what you're are looking for is inefficient. It could take much longer than needed. And you could still miss something important.

The trick is to focus on what's important to your customers. More specifically, what criteria do they use when choosing between you and your competitors. This could be based on price, convenience, product or service features, image, reliability, etc. Most often, it is on the ability to solve a problem they have.

Once you've identified these competitive factors, you need to be particularly alert to any changes your competitors make or signals of future changes they give off. This will enable you to plan your strategy accordingly.

One way to find out what your industries competitive factors are is to just ask your customers. Remember to ask both:

people who are already your customers, and
people who you would like as customers but don't do business with you yet (prospects and targets).

However, customers don't always know what they want. It is usually better to ask them what problems they experience and want to solve. (See Everybody Lies: The evolution of market research.)

It is also important to sense check what they tell you against your own trend analysis. (See also How to do a PEST analysis.)

4. Tap in

Once you have your plan in place, you're ready to start gathering data. Staff, customers, suppliers trade bodies, shows and publications are again all invaluable sources of information. Competitive intelligence gathering is a never-ending activity.

There are many information services that you can tap into also. Some of these can be quite pricey. However, simple Google Alerts are often as much as you need.

To set up a Google Alert, simply Google the name of your competitor, click on "News" at the top of the search results, scroll to the bottom of the list of resulting news stories and click on "Create alert". Remember to check the options to ensure you're getting exactly what you want. Et voila, you have competitive intelligence in your inbox on a regular basis. You should have at least one Google Alert for each of your competitors.

5. Visualise

Once you're collecting high quality and relevant competitor intelligence its helpful to find a way to summarise and visualise the results.

The Strategy Canvas provides a neat way of mapping your own business relative to your competitors according to competitive factors you've identified. See: How to draw a Strategy Canvas in 4 steps.

It does require you to score each competitor on each competitive factor. The actual numbers of the scores are not important, they're just a way of comparing one competitor against another (or against your own business). So you have to use your best judgement.

Particularly if you're working in a team environment, forcing yourself to score each competitor against each competitive factor is a great way to focus debate and avoid a pointless talking shop.

6. Tool Up

You can, of course, complete the entire exercise on the back of a paper napkin (or using MS Word, Powerpoint or Excel). You can even find templates for doing this on the Internet.

However, if you've invested all this time an effort in competitor analysis, it makes sense to use a more appropriate tool to help you manage it.

StratNavApp.com is an online tool designed to help you collect and process your competitor analysis, including drawing a Strategy Canvas. (It includes many other tools as well. Covering the entire strategy development and execution cycle. But we'll leave those for another day).

It's a collaborative environment as well. So you can work with your team. All of your insight and discussion is captured in one place. So you'll never have to scour through old documents and emails to put it all back together again. There is also a handy 'bookmarklet' tool which allows you to pull any information from anywhere on the internet into your analysis with a single click of a button.

Go ahead and give it a try!

7. Act

Of course, no amount of competitor analysis will make any difference unless you act on it!

There are a number of ways of using competitive analysis in your strategy: you can:

mimic (fastest follower),
differentiate,
under-cut,
exclude (using exclusivity agreements or patent protection),
collaborate with (subject to anti-trust / competition laws) or
out-manoeuvre your competitors in a variety of ways.

You can also build competitor analysis into game theory analysis. This will help you to understand how competitors may respond to significant strategic moves you're planning before deciding how best to proceed.

Summary

Competitor analysis can seem like a daunting task. Fortunately, there are now many sources of readily available information, as well as tools, such as StratNavApp.com, to help you do it. The most important success criterion is to approach it in a planned and structured manner.

If you need any help getting your competitor analysis programme up and running, please contact me to discuss how I can help.

Using the McKinsey 7S Framework to assess strategic alignment, strengths and weaknesses

This page has been moved.

If you are not redirected in 5 seconds, click here.

Please update your bookmarks.

Five things running taught me about business strategy

I love running. There is something elegantly simple about it. You can do it almost anywhere and with very little equipment. And it's something that we, as humans, have evolved to do over hundreds of thousands of years.

But what does running have to do with strategy? At least five things, I think.

1. Thinking about running

Despite its elegant simplicity (left foot, right foot, repeat...) there is an almost infinite variety of different ways in which people approach running.

One only has to look at the number of books written on the subject to see this.

Training for and running a 5km race is very different from training for and running a 100-mile race. Road races are different from trail races (as well as all manner of 'adventure' races).

And there is:

running form,
cadence,
a seemingly infinite variety of different types of training runs,
cross-training,
hydration,
nutrition (both in general and while running),
warm-up and recovery,
dealing with injuries,
mental preparation,
race tactics,
a huge variety of different types of shoes,
specialist clothing for all conditions,

etc., to consider.

And so most runners know that to progress beyond a certain level you need to approach running strategically. Just like in business, progressing as a runner requires that you:

Study and understand what makes a great runner - see running form, cadence, etc. listed above.
Understand your own strengths and weaknesses, both physically and mentally.
Have clear goals of what kind of runner you want to be. What distances you want to run and on what type of terrain. How competitive versus social you want to be. Focus is essential.
Understand your circumstances relative to those goals. This includes other time commitments, access to the type of terrain you want to run and other such resources.
Develop a clear plan of how you intend to achieve your goals, taking your strengths, weaknesses and circumstances into account.
Execute that plan with discipline and diligence. Even when it's cold and wet out. Adapting around all the other distractions of life that inevitably intervene from time to time.
Track your progress and adjust your plans as you go. Nothing ever goes exactly to plan.

I started running relatively late in life. At the time, I could barely run 2km without collapsing in a puffing and panting heap. All I wanted to do was get a little fit. However, as I gained a basic level of fitness, I started to think about running more strategically (as I eventually do with most things in life!) Eventually, a few short years later, I ended up running a 50-mile trail ultra-marathon.

When I started running, I knew nothing about ultra-marathons. I certainly would never have imagined I could ever actually run one. Running has taught me that:

With thought and insight, planning and preparation, and discipline in execution, people and businesses can achieve almost unbelievable things. (Tweet this!)

2. Thinking while running

Running, particularly longer distances, gives you lots of time to think. There is something meditative in the simple and repetitive motion of running. It clears your head. Some runners like to use headphones and music to pass the time while running. But I usually avoid this, preferring just to be present in the activity.

I've done some of my best thinking while running. Being unable to take notes or start acting on my thoughts immediately, leaves me free to think more deeply than I otherwise might. And, of course, after a run, I come back to the world with a clearer head. I am more ready than before to tackle whatever the day demands.

Sometimes you can get so close to a seemingly intractable strategic problem that you can no longer see the forest for the trees. (Tweet this!)

When that happens, it is useful to have a way to step back from the problem. To change your mode of thinking. To give yourself enough space to see things differently. Sometimes, the simple act of going for a walk around the block is enough. Other times you need something more. And with most things in life, practice makes perfect.

3. Learning to dig deep

No strategy is ever plain sailing. As Machiavelli said, "It must be considered that there is nothing more difficult to carry out nor more doubtful of success nor more dangerous to handle than to initiate a new order of things." Executing strategy takes hard work and often long hours. The circumstances are often emotionally charged. Let's face it - it can be draining at times.

Long distances running teaches you to remain focused up to and beyond the point of total exhaustion.

Physical and mental fitness are a key determinant of success in business as much as they are in running. (Tweet this!)

4. Being flexible

Let's face it: things don't always go according to plan. No matter how well you prepare, things still go wrong on a run. Anything from bad weather, to a dodgy prawn the night before, to blisters, chafing or other injuries, to getting lost on the trail, can threaten your run.

With experience and foresight, you can anticipate and avoid many issues. You can carry a waterproof jacket and mobile phone case. You can eat only tried and tested safe meals leading up to a race. You can wear twin-skin socks. You can carry a map and compass, etc. Other times, you have no choice but to bail out of a run early. This can be heartbreaking if its a race you've spent months preparing for!

Training, also, may not go according to plan. Work and family commitments, illness, etc. can call get in the way.

The key, in running as in business, is preparation, anticipation AND flexibility. Bake those into your plans. Don't treat them as an afterthought AFTER things don't go according to plan.

Bake preparation, anticipation and flexibility into your plans, not AFTER things don't go according to plan. (Tweet this!)

5. Remembering to have fun

There is a certain physical pleasure you get from pushing your body beyond its limits. There is also the satisfaction you get from achieving things you couldn't do before. And there is joy in just being outside and on the trails. You get the best views, I believe, by running to the top of the hill. I've seen some spectacular sights when out running. I've observed the changing seasons in the forest more keenly than I otherwise would have.

They say it's important to stop and smell the flowers from time to time. Running affords me a unique opportunity to do so.

Of course, there have been early morning training runs, when it's cold, dark and wet outside. Times when I've had to remind myself that I enjoy running. But at the end of the day, I know I'd never have kept it up if I didn't enjoy it as an activity in itself and because of the sense of achievement I've gotten from it.

And I think it is the same with business strategy also. As noted above, it can be physically and mentally draining. If you don't enjoy the process, and if you aren't intrinsically motivated by what you're trying to achieve, it will be hard, if not impossible, to keep performing at your best.

Indeed, one might question whether struggle without enjoyment makes any sense at all. (Tweet this!)

So whatever business you're in, and whatever strategy you're pursuing, make sure it is something that brings you some joy. And in the difficult times - for they will come - make an effort to keep some fun in the process.

I am no running coach, but I am a strategy consultant. For a confidential conversation about how I could help your business, please contact me.

See also: