Free Winning: The Answers: Confronting 74 of the Toughest Questions in Business Today by Jack Welch, Suzy Welch Page B
Authors: Jack Welch, Suzy Welch
way, strategy is just a winning value proposition, that is, a product or service that customers simply want more than the other options out there. Beyond that, strategy is all in its execution—and on that front, small companies actually have something of an advantage.
Now, we don’t blame you for feeling as if most of the advice on strategy that you hear today applies mainly to big companies. It’s all so complex, as if strategy is some kind of high-brain scientific methodology. In fact, with the arduous, intellectualized number crunching and data analysis being promoted, well…you’d have to be a large company to have the people, time, and money to attempt it.
Don’t bother. The more you grind down into details and different scenarios, the more you get tied up in knots. Look, once you have your big aha, strategy is just a general direction. It’s an approximate course of action that you revisit and redefine according to shifting market conditions. It’s got to feel fluid—it’s got to be alive!
Small companies—and large ones—can actually come up with their strategy just by probing five key questions. What does the competitive playing field look like? What have our competitors been up to lately? What have we done lately? What future events or possible changes keep us up at night with worry? And given all that, what’s our winning move?
This relatively fast, theory-free process obviously doesn’t require an academic textbook or consultants to complete. In fact, it requires only a team of informed, engaged employees who can dream big and debate intensely—and ultimately emerge with a dynamic game plan.
Then it’s time to implement, and that’s when small companies really have it made. When there are only one hundred employees, or even a thousand, it is just so much easier to communicate strategy and get people excited about it with a shared, contagious intensity and spirit of can-do. And once the strategy is launched, small companies, like little powerboats, are able to adjust direction more quickly than corporate ocean liners. They can also hire faster, make decisions with fewer bureaucratic hurdles, and generally see their mistakes (and fix them) sooner than hulking rivals.
With that said, small isn’t totally beautiful when it comes to strategy. Here’s the rub: with constrained resources, you have to be right more often. Big companies can take a lot of swings; they can afford to invest in one or two or three big ahas that don’t work out. By contrast, one big strategy mistake can put a small company out of business.
The imperative for small companies, then, is to hold their value proposition to a higher standard. They really have to make sure they’ve got something singular—a new idea with a patent, a breakthrough technology, an extremely low-cost process, or a unique service offering. Whatever—it just has to have the power to attract customers and make them stick.
And when they do, small companies can celebrate a strategy that’s winning, knowing they did it without all the charts, graphs, reports, studies, and big fat stacks of PowerPoint slides that no one really needs, not even the big guys.
THE CONSULTANT CONUNDRUM
----
Are consultants good or bad? Under what circumstances would you bring them in, and what does bringing them in say about the skills of your own people?
— ALBANY, NEW YORK
----
Y our question is sort of like asking, “Are doctors good or bad?” The answer is, some are good and some are bad—but either way, you want to spend as little time with them as you can.
Look, the problem with consultants is they’re fundamentally (if surreptitiously) at loggerheads with the managers they want to work for. Consultants want to come into a company, solve its mess, and then hang around finding and solving other messes— forever. Managers want consultants to come in, solve their specific problem fast, and get out, also forever. The tension between these
Now, we don’t blame you for feeling as if most of the advice on strategy that you hear today applies mainly to big companies. It’s all so complex, as if strategy is some kind of high-brain scientific methodology. In fact, with the arduous, intellectualized number crunching and data analysis being promoted, well…you’d have to be a large company to have the people, time, and money to attempt it.
Don’t bother. The more you grind down into details and different scenarios, the more you get tied up in knots. Look, once you have your big aha, strategy is just a general direction. It’s an approximate course of action that you revisit and redefine according to shifting market conditions. It’s got to feel fluid—it’s got to be alive!
Small companies—and large ones—can actually come up with their strategy just by probing five key questions. What does the competitive playing field look like? What have our competitors been up to lately? What have we done lately? What future events or possible changes keep us up at night with worry? And given all that, what’s our winning move?
This relatively fast, theory-free process obviously doesn’t require an academic textbook or consultants to complete. In fact, it requires only a team of informed, engaged employees who can dream big and debate intensely—and ultimately emerge with a dynamic game plan.
Then it’s time to implement, and that’s when small companies really have it made. When there are only one hundred employees, or even a thousand, it is just so much easier to communicate strategy and get people excited about it with a shared, contagious intensity and spirit of can-do. And once the strategy is launched, small companies, like little powerboats, are able to adjust direction more quickly than corporate ocean liners. They can also hire faster, make decisions with fewer bureaucratic hurdles, and generally see their mistakes (and fix them) sooner than hulking rivals.
With that said, small isn’t totally beautiful when it comes to strategy. Here’s the rub: with constrained resources, you have to be right more often. Big companies can take a lot of swings; they can afford to invest in one or two or three big ahas that don’t work out. By contrast, one big strategy mistake can put a small company out of business.
The imperative for small companies, then, is to hold their value proposition to a higher standard. They really have to make sure they’ve got something singular—a new idea with a patent, a breakthrough technology, an extremely low-cost process, or a unique service offering. Whatever—it just has to have the power to attract customers and make them stick.
And when they do, small companies can celebrate a strategy that’s winning, knowing they did it without all the charts, graphs, reports, studies, and big fat stacks of PowerPoint slides that no one really needs, not even the big guys.
THE CONSULTANT CONUNDRUM
----
Are consultants good or bad? Under what circumstances would you bring them in, and what does bringing them in say about the skills of your own people?
— ALBANY, NEW YORK
----
Y our question is sort of like asking, “Are doctors good or bad?” The answer is, some are good and some are bad—but either way, you want to spend as little time with them as you can.
Look, the problem with consultants is they’re fundamentally (if surreptitiously) at loggerheads with the managers they want to work for. Consultants want to come into a company, solve its mess, and then hang around finding and solving other messes— forever. Managers want consultants to come in, solve their specific problem fast, and get out, also forever. The tension between these
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