In his book, Winning, Jack Welch outlines several keys to creating a strategic plan that is realistic, honest, and attainable. He suggests asking several questions as you formulate your strategy:

1. What does the playing field look like now?
   - Who are the competitors?
   - Who has what share in each market?
2. What has the competition been up to?
   - What has each competitor done in the past year to change the playing field?
   - Are there any new entrants, and what have they been up to in the past year?
3. What have you been up to?
   - Have you bought another company, introduced a new product, stolen a competitor’s key salesperson or licensed a new technology from a start-up?
   - Have you lost any competitive advantages that you once had - a great salesperson, special product, a proprietary technology?
4. What’s around the corner?
   - What scares you most in the year ahead?
   - What new products or technologies could your competitors launch that might change the game?
5. What’s your winning move?
   - What can you do to change the playing field?
   - What can you do to make customers stick to you more than ever before and more than to anyone else?

I think these questions are a wonderful aid to starting to think about a new or revised strategy.  They get your mind focused on the issues at hand in ways that you can really answer.  Having the answer to these questions would really position me to move forward and build a plan to implement a strategy that takes the current reality of the situation in to consideration.

Filed under: Leadership