Strategic Balancing Act

Published on May 1, 2018 |

It’s one thing to identify strategies that will enable you to achieve your business objectives, but it’s quite another to implement those strategies effectively. Opposing forces and competing needs inevitably come into play. Usually, we tend towards one or the other. But it’s in balancing these tensions that we increase the likelihood of eventual success.

Focus

Vision is critical to getting buy-in and inspiring your team. Yet executing a plan and hitting intermediate steps are critical in keeping people motivated. It’s important to focus on both—reinforcing where you’re headed while affirming how you’re getting there.

Authority

A successful initiative requires clear leadership. It’s also vital that employees feel empowered to implement change. Without these, the result is either chaos or apathy. By establishing authority across each level, everyone will be pulling together in the same direction.

Measures

New strategies mean shifting the ways we work. Yet we’re often still responsible for bottom-line results. Ignoring the former leads to failure. Forgetting the latter can derail growth. The key: look for quick wins even as you make long-term changes.

Approach

Successful strategies are grounded in creativity, so it can be tempting to resist any structure. Yet without such discipline, that creativity remains unfocused and unproductive. Rather than complete freedom—or stifling control—an accountable creativity is needed.

In the end, achieving this balance is not easy, and it’s definitely an art as much as a science. But if we’re committed to it, we’ll unlock the door to sustained business growth.