The strategy is not what you plan to do or what you dream of being. Your strategy is what you´re doing right now. That is your real strategy. All the rest are dreams. You cannot become what you want if you keep on being the same. Think about the difference between what you want to be and what you currently are. Start working today on diminishing these misalignments.
Your challenge must be reducing the difference between what you say and what you do. This will help you align your team. They will notice what you do much more than what you say. If you, as a leader, are vague about your strategy, transmit unclear messages, act ambiguously or take erratic decisions, it will be interpreted very negatively by your team. You will hurt your relationship with your team as well as its efficiency.
Never forget that employees are always looking for counterexamples in your behavior.
If your strategy is what you´re doing right now, your job as a leader is to identify your strategic misalignments. Are you developing the necessary skills and abilities in your team to serve the client as you have planned? Are you creating real value for your clients, shareholders, and employees? Have you aligned your skills in such a way that you can attend to your client´s needs as none another can?
Do not try to innovate for the future, instead, innovate for the present. Start working on change now.
Sometimes the business owner realizes that he cannot change his company. That it needs someone else to really produce the needed change. In those cases, the better way is to sell it before it is too late.
Article was written by Enrique Quemada, Chairman of ONEtoONE Corporate Finance Group
