Growth tips 30 seconds to business enlightenment.
SWOT Analysis - part 3
02-Feb-2012
Your SWOT Analysis should be updated every quarter to ensure it is an
accurate reflection of your current operating environment. The pace of
change is increasing and you need to keep ahead of it!
Narrow your SWOT analysis down to no more than 5 items per category.
What are your top 5 Strengths? Top 5 Weaknesses? Top 5 Opportunities?
Top 5 Threats? Now rank them in priority order. E.g. if you could only
fix one weakness, what is your #1 weakness? If you could fix two
weaknesses, what would be the #2 weakness you would work on next?
Your updated SWOT Analysis
(“reality assessment”) provides the context from which you can now
choose the most important strategic priorities to allocate your people,
time and resources to in the coming period. Your strategic execution
decisions are now made easy – they must be directly derived from your
SWOT Analysis.
Thus, if an issue is not mentioned in your SWOT Analysis, it is a
distraction, and you should NOT be working on it at all in the coming
period. This helps to maintain a disciplined execution focus – you now
know what to say “NO” to.
No squirrels!
We see many firms constantly race from one thing to the next. Always
changing and never getting the results they really want. Just like the
dog in the animated movie “Up” they see a squirrel, they race off in
that direction; they see another squirrel, they race off in the other
direction. This a major cause of poor business execution.
Every quarter is a sprint. The company must decide exactly what issues
they are going to address each quarter. We restrict our clients to
taking on no more than 3 projects each quarter to address the issues
listed in their SWOT Analysis (and then we hold their feet to the fire
to make sure they see these things through and achieve the milestones
they set).
We will not let our clients “chase squirrels” mid-way through the quarter.
Less is more.
Look at your SWOT analysis. Think about how you can leverage your
current strengths. If you were to undertake 3 projects in this coming
quarter what would they be? Perhaps you will improve one or more
weaknesses, or pursue one or more opportunities, or reduce one or more
threats?
Remember the concept of “dual vision”.
You need to balance “improving what is” versus “creating what will
be”. What is more important to you right now? A quote from management
guru Gary Hamel is worth contemplating: “The single biggest reason
companies fail, is that they over invest in what is, as compared to
creating what will be”.
What 3 projects would have the biggest impact in terms of either improving your current business model, or moving your business in your chosen strategic direction? Choose wisely.
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34531334269947::RESULTS.com | The Missing 98%
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Monday
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| Date | 21-May-2012 |
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