Get the facts
Another step in making better strategic decisions is basing yourdecisions on better information.
At Seaman’s, for example, most of the major strategic decisions aremade at the executive team’s two-day, off-site meeting in December.
So before he leaves for that, Seaman wants to have all the facts.Starting three months prior to the off-site meeting, Seaman and hisstaff begin gathering input from his employees.
In September, the company first assesses the implementation of lastyear’s plan. Then, throughout September and October, the executivesbring in members of the sales and marketing team to give reviews foreach market the company is involved in. They provide Seaman withupdates on how well the company has done historically and on anyissues that may have surfaced in the last 12 months in that particularmarketplace.
“By presenting the markets and our position in the marketplace, therest of my senior management team has the ability to stay currentwith the challenges of the marketplace. We try to say, ‘What’s the keystrategic issue with this market going forward?’
In some cases, maybe there aren’t any,” Seaman says. “Maybewe’re right on track, things are going well. So you just keep ondoing what you’re doing, and there isn’t really any issue that rises toa strategic level. But at least everybody’s got a sense of comfort ofwhat’s happening in that marketplace.”
Bringing people together like this is also a good time to make sureall your people are on the right page. During the strategic planning sessions, Seaman brings in leaders from different departments becausehe doesn’t want sales telling him one thing and marketing telling himanother.
“If there’s a difference of opinion, I want it to occur right now, and Iwant both the sales and marketing people to go back and find out thefacts,” he says. “What’s the reality of what we’re talking about?”
In November, his team does a competitor analysis so that theyunderstand who their competitors are. During the analysis, Seamanfocuses on what may have changed during the year with regards tothe company’s
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ompetitors — changing factors that may have madethem stronger or more vulnerable.
By looking at this data, Seaman says you can work with yourteam to make an informed decision on where to take the company.
“For those on the senior management team who are not as closeto the marketplace to ask questions, we get the opportunity tochallenge things and to try to get the answers to those challengesverified by actual data before December, which is when we go intoour two-day off-site,” he says. “What that allows us to do is to really be focused on the strategic issues and strategic discussions atthat two-day off-site — and not waste a lot of time trying to question the validity of the input around the issues we’re talking about.We try to get that all out on the table three months before we havethe off-site.”
Over the course of the September and October meetings, Seamantries to define four to six key strategic issues that need to beaddressed at the December off-site meeting. These issues may carryover from previous meetings or vary from year to year. Then, he putstogether a team of five to 10 people to start evaluating that particularissue.
He gives the group between 30 and 60 days to evaluate the implications of the issue and to develop some strategic options. Thenthey return and present those options to the senior leadershipteam with a recommendation, which Seaman and his team takeinto account when making the decision. By letting the key strategic issues percolate to the top, it sets a solid foundation for seniorleaders’ meeting.
“Then in December when we have our two-day off-site, the agendais very focused on those four to six strategic issues that we can spendtwo days having really good solid discussion around,” he says. “At theend of those two days, we can make some very specific decisionsabout those particular issues in terms of the direction we’re going.”
