by the Skills Accelerator team
Why embed strategic skills?
Strategy as a concept is something that can be traced back to our hunter gatherer days, and yet in modern business it can often be a term that is overused without proper understanding or implementation. Gone are the days when strategy was only a term used or understood by senior management and instead, participation and involvement in strategic thinking is seen to be key to business success. Yet in large organisations especially it can be difficult to engage staff in strategic thinking and to encourage them to use strategic planning as part of their projects. However, with the increasing change that is evident both in the broad environment surrounding our organisations and within organisational projects, strategic planning is a critical competency for almost all employees to master.
And this is just one example of why - a study by Harvard Business Review (2021) of over 1,000 global business and technology professionals revealed the key difference between those organisations who succeeded and excelled during covid-19 and those who did not was strategic agility and the ability to embrace change. The research found that leaders in strategy execution are 3x more likely to exceed financial targets, 3x more likely to exceed strategic objectives and 2x more likely to exceed delivery of innovative products and services. Key was building speed and agility into their operations, or in other words ensuring that their people and departments were wired, prepared, and equipped for strategic change.
There are plenty of examples of organisations who thrived due to good strategic thinking, especially during the pandemic. Many US hotels began offering day rates to working from home employees to provide them with space to focus. Restaurants like California Pizza Kitchen and Subway entered the grocery market, providing benefits to consumers and a much-needed revenue stream for them. There are also many examples of organisations whose difficulties were accelerated by the pandemic and a lack of strategic thinking, including retailers like JCPenney Co and clothing retailers like J. Crew. Constantly innovating and ensuring you have strategic planning skills to deal with inevitable change is key.
Embedding strategic thinking and strategic skills enables the development of key competencies within staff members that will last the organisation a lifetime. Couple this with the empowerment and ownership that employees gain from involvement in strategic thinking and the result is an organisation that is forward thinking, has a positive culture and which is agile enough to deal with any situation. But how exactly can we ensure that strategic thinking and planning is something that can be embedded throughout our organisations, without the need for hiring new staff or sending employees on resource intensive training?
Build knowledge of strategy tools
Embedding strategic thinking starts with an understanding and utilisation of several different strategic tools, some of which look externally and some of which look internally. These are tools that can be used to assess any project idea in any department, ensuring their use is organisation wide. So, what are they?
External analysis - PESTEL: One of the most important strategic tools that can be used by an organisation is the PESTEL analysis which involves analysing the macroenvironment surrounding the organisation. A PESTEL analysis focuses on the political, economic, social, technological, environmental, and legal factors that are likely to impact the organisation now and in the future. Ultimately the aim is to be able to identify opportunities and threats and to generate strategic plans to be able to capitalise on or overcome these
External analysis - Porters Five Forces: Following on from a PESTEL analysis it is critical to utilise and apply a Porters Five Forces analysis, understanding the competitive forces impacting the industry. This analysis covers competitive rivalry, bargaining power of buyers, bargaining power of suppliers, threat of substitutes and the threat of new entrants. A PESTEL and Porters Five Forces analysis combined enable an holistic understanding of the macroenvironment of the organisation.
Internal analysis – Business Model Canvas: Once this external analysis has been undertaken then it is important to turn attention internally within the organisation looking at the competencies and resources that the organisation currently has. One tool that can be used to do this is a business model canvas, which creates a visual representation of resources and competences and other areas such as partners, relationships, customers, revenue, costs, and value propositions, all of which impact the internal environment.
Resulting in decision making: These tools combined enable strategic decisions to be made for key projects based on data and information that has been gathered, decisions that will positively impact the organisation.
Communication and Implementation: Finally, it is important to communicate these findings in an effective and succinct manner, ensuring that the results of the strategic thinking process are utilised in the best way.
Thinking about embedding these skills and finding the time, resource, and capability to do this are two very different things. So how can organisations who are continually having to pivot and be proactive in the face of change ensure this is delivered in practice?
An answer is Skills Accelerator
Skills Accelerator has been designed to make learning and development within large organisations easier and more effective. The “creating a strategic plan” course in particular offers staff the opportunity to develop strategic thinking skills and competencies focussing on a key project of importance to their organisation. This could range from wanting to explore new product or service offerings, to expanding into new market areas, to needing to evaluate the current strategy of the organisation or department. Skills Accelerator is designed to help and guide employees through whatever project they may be interested in. This enables ownership of projects and a deeper understanding of the role of the project within the wider organisational context. The “Creating a Strategic Plan” course specifically enables the development of the following key skills, skills that can be repeatedly used throughout the business:
1. Research – employees will be able to undertake research on a business problem or opportunity and will learn how to gather data and information from various sources, including primary and secondary data
2. Analysis – employees will be able to undertake an analysis of your organisations external and internal environment
3. Critical Thinking – employees will be able to apply a high level of critical thinking to a variety of different data, resources and knowledge obtained and be able to synthesise this
4. Decision Making – employees will be able to demonstrate a high level of decision making. They will be able to review all data and information gathered, analyse, and synthesise this and evaluate it to a high level to make the best decision for your organisation
5. Communication – employees will be able to take the knowledge and information that they have gained and communicate this in a clear and succinct way
Ultimately this learning journey undertaken enables recommendations to be presented regarding the future or direction of the project. These are all tools and skills that can be utilised and applied in multiple scenarios, thus providing employees with knowledge they can draw upon time and time again.