Good Strategy vs. Bad Strategy (Part V)

7 Steps to Avoiding Fluff

So far in our review of Richard Rumelt’s book, “Good Strategy / Bad Strategy”, I have discussed the elements of good strategy and how failing to face your company’s challenges can lead to bad strategy. We’ve also discussed how mistaking goals for strategy and bad strategic objectives can lead to bad strategy.  In this post, we’ll take a look at another indicator of bad strategy, FLUFF.

Fluff

Fluff – A technical term that could be substituted with more colorful four letter words. According to Rumelt, Fluff is “… a form of gibberish masquerading as strategic concepts or arguments. It uses ‘Sunday’ words (words that are inflated and unnecessarily abstruse) and apparently esoteric concepts to create the illusion of high-level thinking.” 

Fluff becomes more and more common the larger an organization becomes.  This is because larger organizations seem to measure their plans by weight rather than content.  Therefore, the individual managers continue to churn out plans that state the obvious goals (grow the division by x%, increase market share by y%), but fail to touch on the dirty work of how these goals are going to be accomplished and which individuals are responsible for them.  Pay attention for buzz words in these plans as well.  Terms like “customer centric” and “best in class” are commonly used.

Despite fluff’s prevalence in organizations, it can be easily prevented. Below are 7 steps to take to avoid fluff in your plans and your organization in general.

    1. Focus On The How: Strategic plans are about establishing or capitalizing on a competitive advantage.  What competitive advantage is going to allow you to reach this goal? How are you going to leverage that competitive advantage to reach this goal?

 

    1. Responsibility: Make sure your plan has individuals responsible for each goal.   Once an individual is singled out in the plan (and cannot hide behind a group or division) you will find that that individual becomes much more interested in how the goal is going to be accomplished!  There can be a team to support the individual, but only one person can take responsibility for meeting the objective.

 

    1. Skin In the Game: Make sure the support team has skin in the game.  You need one person to take responsibility for the strategic objective, but that person cannot accomplish the task alone.  Be sure to hold the rest of the team accountable as well.  This is where your strategic plan and human resources plan must come together.

 

    1. Review: Make sure that your team’s performance on their strategic objectives is part of your performance review process.  The strategic objectives cannot be a solo project above and beyond your people’s daily responsibilities. Make sure they are rewarded (or not) for the work they do on the strategic plan and that everyone knows their performance on the plan will be a part of their overall performance review.

 

    1. Short Term Milestones: Set short term milestones that the individuals must meet. Rocket ships and planes are continually shifted off course by environmental factors and have to constantly correct course to reach their destination. Think of your strategic plan as your personal moon shot. Lots of course corrections will be required. Make sure you are making re-adjustments regularly.

 

    1. Accountability Meetings: Set accountability meetings.  The strategy team should be reviewing progress no less often than once per month.  Shoot for every week during the first month of the plan.

 

  1. Adjust: Executing strategy is not easy.  If it was, more than 15% of the organizations who have strategic plans would be successful in executing them.  If you are not meeting your short term milestones, make quick adjustments to get back on track!

In my next post, we’ll consider the two primary causes of bad strategy.

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Photo courtesy of http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marshmallow_creme

Look for other posts in the Good Vs. Bad Strategy series?

  1. Intro
  2. 4 Steps to Facing the Challenge in Your Strategy
  3. 4 Steps to Avoid Mistaking Goals for Strategy
  4. 3 Steps to Setting Great Objectives
  5. 7 Steps to Avoiding Fluff
  6. Conclusion

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