Your most common strategy questions answered

I've recently been traveling out west as I'm working with a professional services firm to design a strategy that supports and enables their growth goals.

Of course, this opportunity came about because leaders at the firm shared my belief that aligning people to a compelling and differentiated strategy is the difference-maker between firms that remain relevant and sustainable and the rest.

The thing is, I know that there are many leaders of firms (big and small) who struggle with the idea of strategy.

People are confused about what an effective strategy looks like, how to start developing one, and why they should dedicate time away from service delivery and day-to-day work to design and get people aligned to one.

These were the sorts of questions that attendees submitted and Mark Ferris, CEO of Panalitix, and I discussed in our recent fireside chat all about leadership, strategy, and growth for CPA firms.

Out of that conversation came this short video with answers to those common questions.

This is one of those videos that I strongly encourage you to watch, as it serves as a solid foundation to help you understand what a strategy is, why you need one, and how to get started.

Some key summary points:

• Strategy = running the firm (doing the work) and transforming the organization at the same time

• A well-designed strategy should enable achieving the firm’s vision and mission

• Strategic pillars will be critical for people to focus on what’s truly important: the ingredients of their success

• A strategy is not an organization’s growth percentage, or margin KPI. It’s a guide of what a firm will do, rather than the result.

• The vision of the firm is not a revenue goal - think qualitatively...what do you want the firm to become?

• All roads lead to/from strategy - once designed, executing strategy becomes part of everything you do each day, not a once-a-month time block

I wrote more about the importance of strategy to firm growth and went deeper into what makes a good one in one of the first articles I wrote in this series.

You can ​find that article here​.

If you have an outstanding question about strategy, send me a reply and I’ll do my best to answer it in the coming days.

I'm currently leading a professional services firm through a strategy design process.

After an initial kickoff call for introductions and to set the stage for the project, I spent an entire day in-person with their leadership team, diving into their stated mission and vision in order to identify the key pillars (differentiators) that would enable them to achieve both.

And in the spirit of candor and BREAK THE MOLD™, we didn’t settle on being a ‘people first’ organization or succumb to the age-old ‘a strategy which doesn’t change our culture’.

It was a fun and rewarding day as we started to see the strategy come together and, more importantly, see people’s eyes light up as things started to click.

If you're interested in working together to design a strategy for your firm, we can set up an initial call to discuss what you're thinking and how I might help. Send me a reply or book time on my calendar using the links below.

With intention,
Alan D Whitman

PS... Mark and I are hosting another live session on July 22nd @ 4pm ET. ​You can register here to attend live​, and everyone who registers will also receive the recording