Hey, happy Monday,
I’m back up and running 100 percent, are you?
I am writing this note just back from a magical place in which I stayed with my family. One of those vacations that when you return home leaves a little emptiness in your stomach, like when September was approaching as a youngster and you had to go back to city life.
I’m sure you have your own magical place, too. It is not important which one it is but I want to invite you to think about this:
What can you do every day to recreate that feeling?
- Can you extend that good habit you got?
- Can you taste those flavors again? Smell those scents?
- Can you wear that dress you bought there?
- Can you not get angry if the navigator makes you take a wrong turn?
No one forces you to return to the life you had before you left. Just as you created it, you can decide to change it. Yes it is true you already have commitments, deadlines to meet and this year will be even more difficult, but how you deal with them will depend only on you.
Forgive the digression, I did not want to be your motivator.
Rather, I want you to understand that you always make the choice.
In life and work.
Bring some sunshine inside, however.
Well, let’s begin.
5 points +1 of your next growth strategy
Vacations always make us realize that it is possible live in a different way.
Here at STRTGY, however, I can help you understand that you can always work in a different way.
I’d be happy if you started September without that feeling of investing time and energy on projects that have nothing strategic to do and were probably given to you by the same managers who are now wondering what you’re doing…
Achieving outstanding results is something unpredictable. There are no recipes to apply to the letter, and the result is not assured even when you follow, point by point, a Jamie Oliver video recipe, let alone for your business!
Exceptional results, however, are promised in all the PowerPoints that executives package to get their budgets approved for projects in which no one is perfectly clear how they will contribute to the company’s strategy, often wasting time, money and, unfortunately, talent.
We are now entering the last quarter, shortly you too will be asked to state which direction you should go in 2021. Use these tips, at least with your team.
1. Define success
Communicate your goals by identifying maximum 3 numbers that everyone needs to look at to understand that they are going in the right direction.
What should these numbers look like in 3 years?
Consequently, what should these numbers look like this year and next year?
Do not confuse these numbers with the north-star metric or with the OMTM (one metric that matters) that you often read in the carousels pulled off on Instagram and LinkedIn.
We will talk more about this on Thursday
Instead, choose the thing that most closely matches your oxygen. Turnover, margins, maximum costs, … ? This is where you need to unlock growth.
2. Redefine incentive mechanisms
The fastest way to change people’s behaviors is to change their incentives.
Instead of rewarding the behavior of those who finish tasks, try rewarding more those who learn from what they do.
Think about it–is it useful to end an activity if in the midst of it it is clear that it is no longer useful or has the potential to be harmful?
Organizations tend to reward risk-takers, but this only works in stable situations.
Under conditions of uncertainty such as those facing our businesses, it is more important to understand “what not to do” than to continue “doing.”
Remember that it is always more important to take into account the costs of failure not the frequency with which teams fail.
It is more convenient to reward those who have failed early and often but spent little than those who have failed a few times while spending a lot. Don’t you think so?
3. Allow everyone to make decisions, even when you are not there
If the strategy is not clear there will be those who will go north and those who will go south.
The project makes no progress except for cost.
Set people free to make decisions in the common good of the project to go faster.
I provide you with a little tool that I have called the STRTGY Decision Matrix.
Feel free to copy and use it whenever you want.
Send it to your colleagues today.
It is very simple to use. In the “Criteria” column make a list of shared criteria aligned with the goals in step 1 and assign a weight. Describe exactly what aspects are important to consider to make a good choice.
On the columns describe the options available to you and a number from 1 to 5 indicating how confident you are that that option allows you to approach that criterion.
Choose the option with the highest score.
Remember that any decision is never good or bad, it is always “good enough” until the data prove otherwise; what matters is the speed with which, by acquiring them, you can react. And that brings us to the next point.
4. Set checkpoints not milestones
Organize a clear agenda in which it is important to review results not the amount of tasks accomplished (this is where agile collides with reality).
Block off specific times on the calendar now where those involved in the projects share their impact on the numbers, what they have learned and their solutions.
A milestone requires that you have reached a certain goal. Heavy as precisely a milestone, the team stops or continues until it is reached. It is the exact opposite of the agility we seek.
Checkpoints are times when criteria are reviewed or changed. There is no point in continuing in one direction if you do not receive confirmation.
5. Invest only what you can afford to lose
Innovation, we know, is high risk, but innovating is not gambling.
We do this because the reward is the sustainability of our enterprises.
Budgeting time, in addition to being an incredibly expensive process, is one of the most inefficient for promoting innovation. At this time of year, managers ask to bet on their horses.
Go back in time to this period but from the year just past. How useful was that budget? Who was able to predict this pandemic? How easy was it to respond? There-you’ve answered yourself.
What I suggest instead is that you provide your team with all the resources they need to reach the next checkpoint.
Like in video games in which you have to get the little star to get extra time and continue the race.
Invest only what you can afford to lose. If the numbers prove you right-continue. If not, go to the next step.
+1. Continue or quit and document
It may be the case that at each checkpoint everything is falling into place and you and your team are able to chalk up success after success on your path to growth.
The opposite could also happen.
This is the hard truth, but this is where the game is won!
If you are not in an organization that believes in innovation the closure of a project is always experienced painfully. The decision is pushed as far away as possible and everyone denies they were there. The work is buried. And everyone feels they have tarnished their track record.
If you are in an innovative organization, on the other hand, divestment of a project is part of the planning process and is celebrated as well as executed with discipline.
- Document the journey and share the path that led you there.
- What initiative worked and what did not.
- What capabilities the organization has been enriched with.
- How much was saved.
It’s not theory! Learn from the growth hacker of growth hackers!
These steps form the basis of many companies’ growth strategies, but I want you to take away any doubt that this is just theory.
I recommend that you carve out less than 60 minutes of your time, Thursday, September 10 from 6:30 p.m., to meet with Pedro Clivati, Head of Growth at GrowthHackers.com, the world’s largest community on growth hacking founded by Sean Ellis.
I have provided a room on Zoom where we will meet privately with him and talk about Growth Strategy.
Places are limited, so if you have not already done so, I invite you to reserve your place by visiting this link and read the program for his talk. Those who wish can stop by the Q&A session with us.
Only if you register will I be able to send you the link to participate in the Zoom call with Pedro.
I will send you the coordinates for access 15 minutes before the meeting.
See you on Thursday…
Good work!
Make yourself heard.
