How To Leverage Your Strategy Reviews?

It is common knowledge that if you want to succeed in a business career, you must demonstrate your mettle again and again. But to prove that you are a heavy hitter, you need to stand on the home plate; if you never get to the home plate, the world will never know your batting average. It is not surprising then that half the work in your climb to career heights is in getting to the home plate. And how do you do that in cutthroat business organizations? You take every opportunity to demonstrate your potential.

A business strategy review is an excellent opportunity to demonstrate your potential – your strategic thinking, your grasp of business, and your leadership. But most managers fail to shine in annual strategy reviews and thus stay away from the home plate in the next game.  

Consider Paul (name changed), a business manager at a mid-sized manufacturing client. He is a middle-aged, dynamic, high energy business leader for a large business at his company. He is a successful manager who believes in delighting his clients. Although he is quite successful in his domain, he often flounders in strategy reviews, failing to thrive in regular meetings, diminishing the confidence of his business leader. Here’s what happened in the recent strategy review for 2018.

An Inside View From A Strategy Review Meeting

It is early April, and we are all gathered at a large Hilton conference room, a bright room with large windows, an oversized projector screen in the front, an ornate mahogany coffee table at the back, classroom seating in the middle, and happy chatter. We have just heard a rousing speech by the company president and are starting the reviews.

Paul steps forward, dressed in a crisp dark blue shirt and a well-ironed khaki pant, a bunch of handwritten papers in his hand, a confident stride, and a broad smile on his face. “Good morning, I am the first to be on the butcher’s block today” he chuckles to an uneasy reaction from the audience. He places his papers on the desk and picks up the presentation remote. The game is set.

For the next 30 minutes, he drones on the history of his division, the problems in the market, how hard the team is working, how great they are doing despite the harsh business environment, and how beautiful the future will be. His presentation makes my mind drift to words of Shakespeare: “The lady doth protest too much, methinks.” He talks about everything except the specifics – the challenges his group faces, the gap versus plan, and how he will fill the gap. No mention of the help he needs; just a single message: all is well in his command, and he is under control.   

At a different place, with a different audience, and with a different objective this might have been a fantastic presentation. But in this room, for this audience, for the current meeting goals, this review has bombed. Paul communicated the exact opposite of what he wanted to express – that he is in control. His apparent lack of grasp of his business performance makes him appear flaky. Mind you, he is neither flaky nor out of control, but that’s what everyone took away from this presentation.  

Why does this happen? Why do so many business managers fail to use these review meetings well? Often, it is because they do not understand the rationale for a strategy review and how to leverage it.

Understanding Strategy Reviews

A strategy review is nothing more than a business control exercise. Since strategy is a set of choices that an organization makes to achieve a goal, a review of this involves checking whether those decisions are indeed taking the business towards the intended destination. It is not very different from what you do when you are driving your car: making micro changes on the steering wheel, moving steadily into the intended lane as you drive through a meandering expressway.  

A strategy review also helps a business leader understand the crux of the situation: whether the strategic choices are still relevant; whether adequate resources and attention are being deployed behind the execution of the plan; whether her intervention is needed at all. 

What Should You Cover In Your Strategy Reviews?

While individual situations may warrant additional pieces, any strategy review should contain the following:

1. What was your strategy?

2. What was the expectation on the top line and bottom line?

3. What actions did you take?

4. What was the result of your actions?

5. Why was the result different from expectation (both positive and negative)?

6. What did you learn from it? 

7. What will you do differently next year?

8. What help do you need moving forward?

Unfortunately, many managers fail to include the above in their reviews, leaving critical gaps in their presentations, preventing business leaders from getting a full picture, wasting a brilliant opportunity. The successful ones demonstrate a strategic mind and an ability to see the business holistically. Such managers provide a peek into their potential even if their business is not doing well. These are the managers who get to the home plate in the next game. They are the ones who build an impressive batting average. They succeed!

Seeking Help

The last part to remember is that your business leaders want to be helpful. Nothing would delight them more than enabling you to win; after all, when you succeed, they also succeed.  If your environment has changed or your resource allocation is inadequate, then seek help. If you are facing internal or external challenges, lay them out. 

The most ineffective ways of dealing with the problems your business faces is to play the excuse game. It rarely helps, and a pattern of excuses inexorably erodes your credibility. If there is a problem and your business has not performed up to expectations, then accept the truth, explain the cause – as internal or external challenges – and show the remedial measures you will take next year. If your business is doing even better than expected, you still need to manage expectations lest you find yourself on an accelerating treadmill. 

Whether you drive your car or drive your business, you will need to steer it back into the intended lane at regular intervals

Conclusion

In short, whether you drive your car or drive your business, you will need to steer it back into the intended lane at regular intervals. If you treat your strategy reviews as such an exercise, you will get your chance on the home plate more often. Road conditions change frequently, but the seasoned drivers maneuver their cars back, as a matter of fact; business conditions change frequently, but great managers shift their business back on track, as a matter of fact. 

So what will you do differently in your next annual strategy review?