DEFINING YOUR PURPOSE
The first question is to ask is: what’s the first question?
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Where should you start when you set out to build a strategy? In the introduction to this site, we described good strategy as requiring the understanding of where you are now, where you need to be and the definition of a path between the two.
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This sounds incredibly simple, three easy steps.
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Three easy steps if you already have a clear view of your purpose.
If you don’t have this clarity, it’s very easy to set vague goals based on only a partial understanding of where you are now. This then leads to a lack of definition for the journey and you will easily get lost trying to set a path.
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Vague goals have no clear link to what you are actually doing. Setting a goal based on a financial outcome is misleading. The amount of money you make is a result of your strategy, it’s incidental to the work that you are doing. You can use financial goals as a measure on progress but if you set these as goals themselves you will find lose sight of the core activities in your business and will lose focus on what you need to achieve.
You do not set out just to make money, you are making money because you are doing something that people will pay for.
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If your stated goal is ‘to add value’, this is even more vague than having a financial target. Value is also added incidentally from your actions but has the additional challenge of being a subjective term. Financial targets at least have clearly defined units of measure, value targets need context and reference points.
If your goal is to be number one in a particular market, you will be compounding the problems of the previous two points. You are not only setting a goal that is an incidental result rather than a direct action but you have also set a goal that is subjective and defined against an external reference point. If you have a bad year and lose money, but your competition has a worse year and loses more than you, does that count as a successful strategy? The answer to this question relies on a subjective understanding of the context of the results, basing your strategy on this will leave it vague and unfocused
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A further problem with setting your strategy in terms of performance against a competitor is that it is a short term view of success. When you set out to beat a competitor your ability to improve or not is dependent on that competitor and the context of the particular measure you want to beat them at across a fixed timeline. If you set out to improve yourself, this can happen regardless of the actions of your competition and has no end limit.
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One of the most popular TED talks is ‘How great leaders inspire action’ by Simon Sinek. It’s consistently been at the top of their rankings so there’s a good chance that you’ve already seen it. If you haven’t, we would highly recommend taking 20 minutes to watch it here. Sinek describes a system that leaders can use to improve engagement; we believe the same approach forms the basis of a solid strategy.
You need to know why you are doing what you do.
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You are not doing it to make money, to add value or to beat the competition. You turn up to work each day for a purpose that links into who you are and who you want to be. You may want to be an innovator, you may want to provide safety and security or you may want to provide solutions to particular problems or particular people.
It is your purpose, your cause and your beliefs. If you were to explain to anyone why they should care about what you’re doing, this is the answer.
If you understand this you will be able to set a direction for everything that you do.
If you only hire people that need a job, they’ll work for a pay packet. If they believe in what you are doing, they will work beyond their pay because what they are doing is rewarding for them. If you sell a product to customer they will buy it once. If you sell them a belief, they will wait outside a store to buy your latest phone – not for you, but for themselves. They will be loyal ambassadors and representatives for your brand.
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If you understand why you are doing what you do, then you will be able to look at what you do, how you do it and who you do it for from a consistent point of perspective.
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So the first question to ask is why are you doing what you’re doing
