In the following discussion from Lewis Carroll’s novel Alice in Wonderland, Alice asks the Cheshire Cat for advice on which way she should go:
“Would you tell me, please, which way I ought to go from here?”
“That depends a good deal on where you want to get to,” said the Cat.
“I don’t much care where—” said Alice.
“Then it doesn’t matter which way you go,” said the Cat.
“—so long as I get somewhere,” Alice added as an explanation.
“Oh, you’re sure to do that,” said the Cat, “if you only walk long enough.”
At some point in our lives, we’ve all felt like Alice. We set broad objectives without a defined plan for achieving them, or even a clear picture of what success would look or feel like. A common example is fitness goals such as being able to run long distances. Many people, for example, create objectives such as “I want to run a marathon.” The difficulty with this aim is that, while it is detailed, it lacks meaning—running a marathon serves no purpose. Compare this to a goal like “I want to be able to maintain my body healthy while preparing for a difficult task.”
The second example is a goal—being healthy and experiencing the thrill of finishing a lengthy race after putting in a lot of effort. You can almost imagine how it would feel to be in that situation. It would undoubtedly be more pleasurable than attempting to run a marathon without prior preparation.
Entrepreneurs, including you and your colleagues, might fall into similar business pitfalls. People develop ideas all the time, but only a small percentage of them become reality. They don’t have a framework in place to assist them break down major projects into smaller jobs, and they don’t have a decision-making structure that aligns their activities and decisions to achieve their goals (in business and in life). This section will assist you and your team in creating a system for making decisions and concentrating your efforts on the most important issues. It’s referred to as the management framework.
The framework begins with anchoring your decisions and purpose in your values, then creating a clear mission statement for what you want to achieve, and then devising a strategy to assist you get there. It also teaches you how to prioritize and eliminate risks that could prevent you from completing your task. Finally, it helps with the development of metrics and milestones that may be used to track and assess your progress.
As indicated in the diagram below, the framework narrows your focus and targets your efforts to achieve the desired outcome at each phase. Take note of how each phase of the management framework narrows in on certain outcomes, providing additional emphasis. This approach helps you decide what you will do and, in turn, what you will not do by aligning your efforts throughout the framework.
Values
Your values are your guiding beliefs, standards of conduct, and morality. They are the cornerstone of our decisions and are formed by our wants. Every day, you deal with a variety of value systems, which you use to understand the world and determine what is and is not appropriate behavior. Your values are molded by your family, faith, community, friends, culture, and the media, among other things. But we also have community values such as decency, neighborliness, ethics, civility, and adherence to the law. National and ethnic values include patriotism and the celebration of one’s culture and background. Businesses, organizations, and families all have their own set of values. These value systems intersect, converge, and occasionally conflict. Every day, you interact with and are influenced by these distinct value systems.
Every day, you encounter with these numerous value systems, which you use to understand the environment and determine what is and is not acceptable behavior.
When individuals, groups, and organizations join together, they carry their value systems with them. Even if you share many ideals with your teammates, you won’t all have the same perspective on the world, let alone your assignment. This is why it’s so important for teams, organizations, families, and individuals to work hard to develop their values. You must put down your values and practice them until they build a value system that allows you to make the decisions and create the culture you desire.
Mission
Your mission is defined by your purpose, which is drawn from your values and specifies what you do to bring value. The way you add value is stated in your mission statement. Aren’t you convinced that companies whose employees understand why they exist and how they bring value to their customers make better decisions? Isn’t it true that having a clear goal would assist individuals and families in the same way?
Transforming your values into purpose is the power of a mission statement. A mission statement that isn’t based on common values is hollow and shallow. For instance, in the marathon example, the aim of finishing the race isn’t relevant because it doesn’t explain or help you understand why you should do it. However, the example of feeling physically fit and completing a challenging task helps your mind understand why you want to run such a long distance. It alludes to the things that matter to you, such as feeling well and pushing your physical limits. It depicts a destination—this is how I’ll feel and act while I’m training for and running the race.
You must focus your efforts around a defined result in order to have an effective mission statement. It can’t be a to-do list of everything you wish to get done. It must take your shared values and develop a focused, strong manner to convey them.
It’s worth mentioning that the order is important. In business as in life, it’s tempting to skip straight to the planning step to figure out your strategy. Starting with strategy, on the other hand, might be dangerous since you can rationalize nearly any “how” without the anchor of the “why” (values) or the “what” (goal) (strategy).
Strategy
Crafting a strong strategy is one of the most challenging tasks that companies and individuals undertake because it requires them to face their greatest challenges and opportunities head on and devise a roadmap for success. You’ll begin to look at some of the ways you may create clear, executable, and adaptive strategies in business and in life in this part.
Let’s start with what a strategy isn’t. Strategies aren’t outcomes; they’re plans for meeting goals. Strategies aren’t dreams of success; rather, they describe how you’ll achieve it. Problems aren’t hidden under strategies; they’re exposed. Strategies aren’t set in stone beliefs; they change as situations change. Strategies are actual, determined probabilities, not sweeping philosophies. Strategies aren’t ambiguous; they’re specific. To put it another way, your strategy isn’t your mission or vision; it’s your strategy for achieving them.
What distinguishes a successful strategy? To begin, it must be founded on your values and mission. Remember that your strategy is a blueprint for achieving your goal. It’s tough to tell how you’ll do something unless you know what you’re going to do and why you want to do it first. Your team will be more effective because they will have a framework to make decisions with if your values, mission, and strategy are all in sync.
Your vision and mission statements are also the fuel that keeps you going when things become tough. You’ll need that fuel because, no matter how effective your approach is, you’ll make mistakes, and making unpleasant course adjustments will need dedication to your mission and values.
Second, strategy is all about making decisions about how you’ll carry out your mission. You must make a decision on what you will and will not do.
Third, you must determine what you can give that no one else can. Other organizations are likely to have missions and values that are similar to yours. To be successful, you must determine what you can provide that is distinctive and tough to duplicate. What special abilities, talents, or resources do you have that can assist you in achieving your goal? Is there a population that isn’t being served? What opportunities do you see in the market or in existing firms that you could fill? Finding your distinctive value-add can be difficult, yet you’re constantly confronted with circumstances when your skills are required.
It could be a Church calling, a neighborhood, a school, a family, or a community. Every day, you undoubtedly pass people and consider how you may assist them. You may have missed it, but you were thinking about how you could apply your skills to help others.
It’s not much different in the workplace or in your profession. What skills and abilities does your team possess or require in order to assist others? You’re more likely to detect unmet market wants and create ways to service them uniquely if you start with the needs of others.
Another feature of a company strategy is that it should be tough to duplicate. What assets or abilities does your company have that others would find difficult to duplicate? Could you be more responsive to market demands? Are you able to rely on existing resources? Do you have a one-of-a-kind procedure or technology that no one else has? What would be the reaction of existing businesses to your presence? Is it possible that new technology or competition will sabotage your strategy?
Prioritizing by Risk
Making a list of everything you need to get done and then ranking them by significance is a common technique to prioritize tasks. But how can you determine which duty is the most crucial? People will sometimes look at their to-do list and see what they can complete fast, or they will start with the most difficult activity to get it out of the way; some will prioritize based on deadlines. You’ll discover how to prioritize by risk in this part and how it can help you be more effective.
Prioritizing by risks entails assessing all of the tasks required to achieve a goal and categorizing them according to their likelihood of causing you to fail. Let’s take a look at an example of a problem you might be dealing with as a student:
- Read lessons
- Take math quiz
- Attend the gathering
- Respond to teammates
- Email instructor about late assignment
- Register for next semester courses
- Pay tuition
- Pay for internet
- Choose a certificate or major
- Fix laptop
This is a fairly normal set of chores that students must complete, however some of them are riskier than others. Authors Clark G. Gilbert and Matthew J. Eyring claim in their Harvard Business Review piece Beating the Odds When You Launch a New Venture (Links to an external site.) that the finest entrepreneurs are persistent in recognizing, prioritizing, and managing risks. They divide risk into three categories: deal-killer risks, path-dependent risks, and fast resolvable operational risks.
Deal-killer risks (high risk) are things that prevent you from achieving your objective. If you don’t pay your tuition, for example, you won’t be able to continue your education—this is a deal killer.
Path-dependent risks (medium risk) are decisions you make between various options or “paths” that necessitate a significant investment of time and money. Choosing a major, for example, necessitates a significant financial expenditure. If you change your major in the middle of your studies, you may face severe delays and be required to complete additional classes.
Operational risks (low risk) are the duties that you must complete on a daily basis. They’re still crucial, but even if they occur, you’ll be able to achieve your goal. For example, if you don’t manage your time well, you could not have enough time to study for a test, resulting in a poor mark. If this pattern persists, you may be at greater risk, but if you don’t make it a habit, you can recover from a poor grade and move forward.
Let’s apply these categories to our list of tasks and observe what happens when we arrange them by highest risk first.
- Pay tuition (deal-killer)
- Pay for internet (deal-killer)
- Fix laptop (deal-killer)
- Register for next semester courses (path-dependent)
- Choose a certificate or major (path-dependent)
- Read lessons (operational)
- Take math quiz (operational)
- Attend the gathering (operational)
- Respond to teammates (operational)
- Email instructor about late assignment (operational)
In business, risk assessment works the same way. You should always be asking yourself, “What could cause this project, venture, or process to fail?” as you examine your values, mission, and strategy on a regular basis. What market, technological, or economic changes pose the greatest risk? “How do you think your rivals will react to your strategy?”
Your priorities become clearer when you thoroughly examine the threats and risks that face your family, organization, and community. You have the ability to focus your energy on the things that are most important to you. Successful families and businesses are meticulous in their risk management. They identify the most serious threats and work to mitigate or eradicate them in a methodical manner.