How do I know my strategy is right and there isn’t a better one?

Dear Aunty B,

For the first time I can put my head up and look at the future. Firstly because the financial year is over and secondly because I have hired a general manager who appears to be the answer to all my CEO woes of working in the business not on it.

So Aunty I spent a week away from the business working on my strategy. I dreaded the week being a waste of time and getting back to work with nothing to show for it, but the growth strategy came to me so easily that I am now worried I should work harder on it. In fact, I had written the plan in the first two hours of my strategy week and then spent the rest of it finessing the plan and going to the gym.

How do I know this is the right strategy? And shouldn’t I keep looking for a better one?

Excitedly yours,
Rick

Dear Rick,
Believe me. This is the right strategy. You know why? Because the right strategy is usually sitting in front of your nose.

Most of the time business owners can’t see it because they are too busy. Too busy to understand the marketplace and how it is changing, too busy to follow competitors and anticipate their next move, too busy to deepen their relationship with customers and understand how to grow their business for them and too busy to listen to your employees who know many of the answers. And they are too busy to take time out and think about the future.

And you know something? Often all those bits are wafting around in their head and when the business owner does take the time out to sit down and make a plan, the bits just come together.

Take my good self, for example. I never “create” strategy. I uncover it. I always feel the answer to our future growth is sitting there hidden in the ether and I just need to take the time to sit down and step back to uncover it. As I move different scenarios around in my head or on a laptop or a scrappy piece of paper, I suddenly hit that “ah ha” moment.

There it is. Revealed.

How do I know it is right? Because I keep running through more scenarios and nothing feels right or as good. And I keep returning to the “ah ha” one. It feels so right, there could not possibly be a better one. In fact you are, as you point out, slightly ashamed it was so easy!

Now comes the hard part – execution!
Be smart,
Your Aunty B