Toward your desired future. To act decisively and achieve Distinct Relevance.
Over the last half a year, our team has been working hard alongside the team at Flame Centre Singapore and China to build mutual understanding, learning and mastery of our tools in strategic and systemic thinking, innovation, strategy alignment and execution, situation management and partnerships.
We share with you 4 must-haves in Strategic Thinking authored by colleague David Lee. From his perspective as a practicing COO and Senior Consultant, David shares why a deliberate and structured thinking process is essential to break from this natural tendency for same-old strategy and elevate critical thinking beyond the daily grind of business operations and reacting to competitive pressures.
Does your strategy formulation process allow you to achieve all or any of the below?
1. Alignment:
Your strategic thinking process should provide a platform for Management to collaboratively formulate and implement a clear and coherent strategy. It ensures that everyone is on the same page, fostering a shared understanding of the situation and aligning efforts toward a common vision.
2. Ownership:
Many organizations seek external expert consultants to develop new strategies. However, this approach often leads to a "me-too" strategy that mimics competitors, resulting in head-to-head competition and resource-intensive efforts. Moreover, strategies developed externally lack ownership within the organization, making implementation challenging. DPI believes that internal stakeholders are best positioned to determine the organization's future direction. The DPI process empowers teams to think critically, cohesively, and creatively, ensuring that the strategy is owned by those responsible for its execution. This ownership motivates and commits individuals to take initiative, overcome challenges, and drive successful implementation.
3. Focus
Many strategies fail because they are either too broad or attempt to achieve too much. DPI's structured thinking process helps organizations identify the critical component in their value chain that should serve as the driving force. This clarifies resource allocation and guides strategic capabilities' development, leading to a sustainable competitive advantage and distinct relevance.
4. Discipline:
Regardless of how well a strategy is conceived, it's only as effective as its implementation. Many strategies falter due to a lack of discipline and structure during execution. DPI's process goes beyond formulating a coherent future business profile; it establishes a structured approach that ensures organizations address critical issues relentlessly to attain, maintain, or enhance the distinct relevance in their chosen domain.
The DPI Strategic Thinking Process isn't just a framework; it's a dynamic journey toward your desired future. It empowers you to think strategically, act decisively, and achieve distinct relevance in a refreshingly straightforward way.
We hope this piece of reflection has been useful. See a need? Contact us Singapore@dpi-asia.com
For the full article, video interview with DPI Asia MD Andrew Sng, and a strategy checklist, visit https://www.flamecentre.com/mastering-strategic-thinking-your-path-to-success