Your strategy didn’t work out this year? Never mind. You can create a new strategy, and get a real buzz doing it.
Then watch it slowly dissipate as the year goes by.
Too pessimistic? Sadly, I’ve seen this cycle play out over and over.
As much as our addiction to the new can make us miss opportunities with clients and team members, as I’ve discussed in previous posts, where it can get most systematically pernicious is when it extends to strategy.
I’ve seen (and to be fair, been guilty of) this many times in my work with leadership teams. “Our strategy last year didn’t work. So we need to create a new way to, e.g., increase our recurring revenue”.
Reality is, in most instances it wasn’t the strategy that didn’t work. It was the execution. Or lack of it.
But rather than focus on how we execute better, we indulge in a spin of continual, value-sapping, but ironically wonderful-feeling, re-invention.
If you don’t want it to end the same way, next time before launching with vigour at a new x to solve things, pause and see if the issue isn’t one of discipline, understanding and execution rather than the old strategy you had. Was there a plan to execute the strategy? Did you actually start the plan? Did you improve it as you learned more? Or did you just start until the next big thing came along?
