Strategy and a box of crayons

I've been through many facilitated strategy sessions, I have reviewed many small business strategy plans, and I have read many books on different strategy methodologies.

Conclusion: Setting strategy for your business is like drawing a picture using a box of 64 crayons.

Here's what I mean: There are some gifted people that can pull just one color out of the box and create beautiful masterpieces. (These are the companies with no written strategy document and achieve wild success anyway). There are some people who can use every color in the box and create a beautiful masterpiece with all the colors. (These are companies with very detailed and specific strategy documents and execution plans.)

For most of us, assuming we have the gift of "coloring," we could do well with 5, 8, 16 colors to make a successful drawing. To express our thoughts we need some colors but not too many.

A strategy planning session and document is the same thing to me. You don't have to have one, I know many, many companies don't. But if you don't, you will need that special talent of articulating all the elements of running a business to anyone you interact with: customers, staff, bankers, lawyers, accountants, investors, etc. And be able to know when you are doing well or not doing well to make course corrections. The entire success and failure of the company depends on your participation and without you there will be no strategy, no drawing.

I have seen companies spend 5 figure dollars for an extremely detailed strategy document tracking all the minutia of running the company. It had the answer to everything. Expect that by the time it was built life had moved on and it wasn't so relevant or required too much time to maintain. And I have experienced a series of these documents created each year to take their place of reverence on a bookshelf, never to be opened again.

I believe a strategy document that is somewhere in the middle suits most of us. We need to write down where we want the company to go (mission and vision) and we need to write down, at some level, how we are going to get there. Depending on your company and your leaders this document is going to be different - it is your picture.

Strategy is important. It communicates your goals and how you want to get there. Why do you need to share? The accountant may be able to structure a more favorable tax approach. The banker may be willing to give you a lager line of credit or more favorable rates. Your customers will "get" your business because your staff "gets" your vision.

Strategy doesn't need to be complicated but it needs to be written. Your business is your masterpiece, pick your colors wisely.