Ursprungligen postat VK: 14 augusti 2018
Welcome back, everyone!
We hope everyone has enjoyed this spectacular weather and that you are all ready to get back to business. As the weather starts to cool down thats one of the first signs that Strategic Board Meeting season is just around the corner.
This time of year is traditionally dedicated to overarching strategic direction, with a focus on events and decisions to come to fruition in 12-24 months. Although we are normally the ones to promote this type of longterm aligned strategic thinking, it is obviously important to also keep your eye on the key activities to meet this year’s targets.
This is especially important for small and medium-sized (SME), owner-led companies as the ägare, styrelsen and ledningsgrupp are often the same people and directly tied to both strategic decisions and operational execution of the company. In a perfect world, we would have the time, resources, and all information to make these decisions efficiently and properly. In the real world, we must walk that fine line of managing both short and long term organisational objectives while remembering they are separate functions and need to be approached with different mindsets.
One way to achieve this in a simple yet effective way is to get yourself and your team out of the office, shop, warehouse, factory – and for many this is a challenge in itself. To get the most out of the strategic discussions, prepare yourself, collect market and customer data. What are your competitors doing? Check for areas for improvement. Do we really know where we have the best chance to achieve growth and profitability increases? Is there anything we should stop doing to free up resources? Strategy is about making those hard decisions with limited information.
So please remember as you enter “the season” what hat you are wearing (Owner, Chairman, CEO, Sales Manager, Fika Buyer, Coffee Maker). Every hat may be important to the company, but wearing a mössa in the summer is usually not the most optimal.
Cheers!