Why your strategy fails

During the last weeks, I’ve experienced multiple situations where an organization (industrial or academic) simply doesn’t have a business strategy or a strategy concerning a key area for their business. When probed and questioned on the strategy, I’ve observed at least three types of responses.

First, leaders in the company say that there is a strategy and that I’m wrong in claiming otherwise. Although I’ve been wrong many times in my life, to me a strategy should provide clear guidance on what tasks and opportunities should be prioritized over others and, above all, what we shouldn’t spend time, energy and resources on. A strategy that fails to specify what we shouldn’t do, to paraphrase Michael Porter, is no strategy.

Second, the company admits that the strategy is high-level and not operational but defends itself by claiming that its key success in the market is to be customer focused and, consequently, it needs to respond to the requests from customers rather than set its own course. Obviously, this is a fallacy as it causes companies to fall into the “make customers happy” trap. It’s impossible to satisfy everyone. Rather, you need to choose what kind of customers you want and then focus on making them happy. This, of course, is a strategic choice.