If 2020 was, at its oozing, ill-mannered, and sulphureous heart, way too complicated, we’re voting with both words and deeds for a 2021 that’s gets its simplicity act together. To that end, our new-as-of-last-Wednesday-New-Year’s resolution is to make as many contributions to the cause of clarity as we can.

In that spirit, today’s utterly noble, but only the teensiest bit commercial, public service message—cue the solo piano— focuses on a what we’ve found to be a madness-free way to “reductify” (attention: awful coinage alert) strategic course-setting and get your enterprise, of any size or scope or purpose, on the right track.

Full disclosure: while we do add our own secret spices, devotees of former Procter & Gamble CEO A.G. Lafley and Roger L. Martin’s mind-expander, “Playing to Win,” will recognize the provenance.

Speaking personally, they had me with the opening observation that “strategy isn’t complicated, but it is hard.” After all, strategy is all about making choices, often between a myriad of attractively viable options. And nobody, especially nobody with a butt-on-the-business-line, is particularly wild about making choices that involve opening one door while nailing others shut. 

“Tough beansies, bubbeleh,” as your Jewish grandmother might have said if she’d been foolish enough to go into marketing. Choosing between the metaphorical lady and the tooth-rich tiger is why they pay you the medium coin. 

And that’s why this user-friendly step-by-stepper is so damned useful.

The nub of it all involves asking and answering 5 questions, all revolving around successful choice-making: what’s your aspiration (aside from riches beyond the dreams of avarice, what is the winning reason your company, product, brand exists)? Where do you choose to play (who’s your best audience; who or what do you want to compete with)? How will you succeed there (what’s the value proposition; how will you succeed versus all the competitive forces)? What tools will you need to succeed (out of the whole prospective tool kit)?  And, last but far from least in our analytics-intensive world, how will you measure your progress?

But that’s not all f-f-f-f-folks. Because these are all “nested” choices—meaning that each answer has to integrate with all the rest or you need to rethink the conclusions. Example, say you have a pharmacy that aspires to give people their lives back after COVID-19 via vaccination. While you might want to play in the field that includes “everyone” in your market area, we know at least 20% of the population is hesitant to the point of dogged resistance. You now have two choices: either rethink the aspiration to be more likely to succeed with “anti” (and, contrary to common thinking, those do exist), or choose a more productive segment of the market to target. 

Okay, so all the foregoing might be a little short-handed to do the whole thing justice. But give it a mental whirl and we bet you’ll find it as interesting, informative, useful, and, you bet, kinda fun, as we do.

Strategy made simpler is the idea. And if you agree, we’d love to hear your thoughts on how to take it even further.