#234: “Winning should be at the heart of any strategy”
Good morning good people
The Cape’s summer swelter has arrived. In recent days the mercury has nudged 40c, but I remain a red wine lover, so I asked one of my favourite wine shops, Wine Concepts, to give me some lighter reds to try. They added Testalonga’s Baby Bandito Follow Your Dreams, and Grenache Noirs from Eenzaamheid and Radford Dale to my basket. They were all lovely, but I am leaning toward the Radford Dale as my default choice for the remaining weeks of heat.
Wine Concepts is next door to South Africa’s best community grocer, Olive Branch Deli, run by brother and sister team, Ome and Heléne. I added dried porcini and pomegranate molasses to my shopping. And, this week, a friend gifted me some fine and precious saffron. There’s cooking to be done.
/strategy
Former Proctor and Gamble CEO, A.G. Lafley and Professor Emeritus at the Rotman School of Management, Roger Martin’s Playing to Win, starts by noting, “Winning should be at the heart of any strategy”.
In a world where hyper-inflated language props up often-crazy valuations, language like that often frustrates me.
I feel we need considerably less 10xing and more sober assessments.
Nevertheless, Lafley and Martin’s explanation resonated, “Lots of companies try to win and still can’t do it. So imagine, then, the likelihood of winning without explicitly setting out to do so. When a company sets out to participate, rather than win, it will inevitably fail to make the tough choices and the significant investments that would make winning even a remote possibility. A too-modest aspiration is far more dangerous than a too-lofty one. Too many companies eventually die a death of modest aspirations.”
That settled me. That feels fair.
They continue, “… to be most helpful, the abstract concept of winning should be translated into defined aspirations. Aspirations are statements about the ideal future. At a later stage in the (strategy) process, a company ties to those aspirations some specific benchmarks that measure progress toward them.”
Statements about the ideal future are powerful for businesses and individuals. Articulating them creates a tension between what is and what we have expressed as our desire.
Resolving the tension requires we either ignore the dream or give up or take intentional, strategic action to conjure the vision into reality. I prefer the last of these options.
Vision can be somewhat nebulous. Lafley and Martin give us four questions that make it a little more concrete and increase our chances of success:
- Where will we play? (sectors, geographies, types of customers etc)
- How will we win? (for example, through price or differentiation, through standardized or personalized service)
And that often-overlooked but beating heart of successful strategies:
- What capabilities must be in place?
- What management systems are required to enable the development of the capabilities and support the ‘where to play’ and ‘how to win’ choices.
(If you’re crafting your business strategy, you may find these letters useful).
//self
The World Economic Forum released its fifth biannual Future of Jobs Report at the beginning of January.
Established in 2015, the report is based on a survey of 1,043 global companies, collectively representing more than 14.1 million employees worldwide.
It identifies the five most important skills as analytical thinking, resilience, flexibility and agility, leadership and social influence, creative thinking, and motivation and self-awareness.
Analytical thinking was identified as the most important by 70% of employers.
Creating capabilities requires consistent intentional action.
In a world where ‘brain rot’ is Oxford’s Word of the Year, we must focus our energy and effort.
Here’s the good news. The solution already exists. It is an age-old technology. Reading.
Research shows reading:
- Enhances communication, concentration and cognitive abilities.
- Increases the ability to appreciate and manage complexity.
- Reduces loneliness, stress and depression (continuing features of post-pandemic corporate workplaces).
- Increases resilience, self-esteem, empathy and connectedness to others.
- Enriches vocabulary (Separate research shows people with a wider vocabulary have greater self-awareness which is a building block of effective leadership).
Get a reading plan in place (our first letter of the year has some great resources that will help you and these are the books I read last year).
Just twenty minutes a day will make you a better leader (and person).
///soul
The world can be overwhelming. Its forces often seem beyond our grasp. Yet we all have the capacity to make a difference.
In December, South African retailer Checkers released this ad about innovations in its Sixty60 grocery delivery service
It shows a deliveryman driving his motorbike, then walking heroically across a beach, handing off a parcel to another eagerly waiting deliveryman, this one on perched on an idling jet ski who zips across the water to deliver ice-lollies to a yacht anchored off of one of South Africa’s most expensive beaches.
Through one lens, harmless fun.
For the hundreds of people who comment on the ad, brilliant marketing, and outstanding service innovation. All reasons to celebrate.
It made me uncomfortable.
The contrast between the two lives seemed too stark.
I did a little research and discovered my intuition was not wrong. The delivery driver typically earns a net income of just R2,800 a month, a fraction under R130 ($7) per day (How much money Checkers Sixty60 drivers earn in South Africa). The cost of the lollies he delivered? R110.
But perhaps I have it wrong. What do you think?
We lead businesses. We control budgets. We determine how and from whom procurement is done. Some of us here control advertising budgets. We definitely determine which social media we like and share.
Each of these moments and responsibilities present opportunities to shape our world. We can choose.
As always, thank you for being here. You can read past editions of the newsletter here and find our favourite quotations here.
All the very best
Karl
If you’re enjoying what you’re reading, please consider recommending it to others. They can sign up here.
I will have space to take on 5 new clients from June. If you’d like to take one of those places, please make contact with me.