The book 7 Question recent Strategic professor Robert Simons, explains how managers make wise choices by posing these questions.
- Make simple questions to help teams focus on business issues instead focus attention on the information distracting, causing unclear thinking.
- A successful business strategy requires face-to-face debate that managers can create favorable conditions by making the right questions.
- Each question is given in the book of Simons is a topic or a specific process that managers are required to know to implement a successful strategy. Top of Form
1. Who are your main customers?
The first question - the key of any successful strategy lies in the choice of allocating resources to clients. The ongoing competition for resources needs of the business units, supporting organizations and external partners require managers to have a method for evaluating the selected resource allocation is optimal.
Therefore, for any business establishment does critical decisions and the hardest is still determined for those serving or who you are trying to provide the product or service is. Obviously, they have identified major customers, you can focus all your resources to meet the needs of customers and can be reduced to the minimum amount of resources reserved for the Other subjects. This will bring success through competitive advantage.
Faced with a difficult choice for the customer, you will easily accept that your self-serving multiple customers. This is one of the main reasons your company does not operate efficiently. If you repeatedly fail, they may reason is that your competitors have clearly defined audience that is mainly aimed to allocate resources to meet the very specific needs of them, while you are not.
2. The core values prioritizing shareholders, employees or customers?
Along with the identification of major customers, you also need to define the basic values which will specify the objects shareholders, employees and customers, who will be given priority over anyone. Set the value here is not simply a list of acts or behavior that are expected to determine the benefits of the most important one to consider, compromise.
Prioritize the core values should be positioned in strategic pillars of your business. For some companies, the interests of shareholders are the most important, but with other companies, the employees are eligible for priority, or it may be customers. No preference is right or wrong here, but the preferences object to essential. For example, the giant pharmaceutical company Merck lose 20 billion in revenue when the decision to withdraw Vioxx from the market while still marketing Pfizer Celebrex. (Both Vioxx and Celebrex are well-known analgesic products in the US, but the side effects affecting the heart)
3. The most important goal you pursue what?
Once you have a solid foundation in hand, you have a reasonable allocation of resources, and provide appropriate guidance for the difficult decision, it was time for all of your employees focused on work forthcoming.
3rd question is: target job that you put out is what? This question requires you to set the right goals, determine accountability and oversight work. Business results are not as expected if the target job that you focus on the irrational, or monitoring measures are not effective.
You need to ensure that managers are going in the right direction, by choosing several different targets can point out the difference between success and failure as planned.
4. The boundary map out your strategy be?
Each strategy contains within it a risk that the actions of an Individual is able to make your business deviated intended journey. Eliminate the risk is not an easy job. And we will see, the solution here is to point out the limits and boundaries clear.
Risk control strategy is the 4th job that you do. These limits ensure that strategic initiatives in the railway staff that you have designated for your business, and the limited strategy will also help you avoid the missteps led to collapse drop as energy giant Enron finance companies Fannie Mae, Lehman Brothers.
5. How to promote creativity?
Once you are sure that you are putting the right business objectives and risk control, it's time to perform the task: promoting innovation and renewal. This is a vital task for any other business establishments. If you ever do not innovate, improve products or services, you can not survive. No other company exception.
But to continuous innovation, improvement is not simple. People often have the habit of making them live comfortably, they stick with what they know and refuse to use them to change their lifestyle.
To be able to change the inertia, conservative people, you had to pull them out of the ring to adapt and promote their innovation. There are several methods that you can use to stimulate creativity, and to ensure that all people are thinking and acting like those who always desire to win.
6. Do your employees have committed to help each other?
For most companies, the principles set out that people should help each other to achieve the common goal is very important, especially when you ask them to innovate. However, there are exceptions, some organizations can and should be based on self-interest, which means that every person working for the benefit of themselves.
Although not given discuss, consider, but in any organization, the choice is committed to helping each other or to pursue self-interest are shown very clearly. If you've never publicly mentioned this option or just that it was the intention of you are increasing the possibility of failure in their business strategy.
Construction is committed to helping each other is the 6th mission of the management and measures to encourage and foster this commitment.
7. Calculate the uncertainty of the business strategy be?
Although current business strategy of how well you have, it can not effectively forever. Now prevalent at the time thinking, customer preferences change, the competitors are launching new products, while technology is also constantly innovate but you can not expect them to.
And finally there is the task of adapting to change. Obviously, to be able to survive, adapt to new situations is essential, but also extremely difficult. When everything around us is constantly changing, employees often do not know where to look or how to respond to those changes.
People will look at what their bosses look at, so first manager mindful of strategic uncertainty, willing to adapt to change, from which employees can find find their way.
Many companies have been very successful thanks to rapidly adapt to new circumstances. As pharmaceutical company Johnson & Johnson, has used many different methods to search for information, new ideas to market changes.
