Knowledge

Strategy or Wishful Thinking?

When professionals talk about the strategy of their firm, they usually mean what I call the market strategy of the firm: a set of objectives about the firm’s positioning on the market, and a number of ideas and plans to reach these objectives.

In a partnership, however, you can’t have a successful market strategy, not to mention implement it, if you don’t have what I call a partnership strategy, that is a strategy to convince the partners about the need, relevance, and potential benefit of the market strategy you want to adopt.

I have seen more than one strategic initiative fail not because the market strategic plan was inadequate, but because there was no strong strategy to engage the partners behind it. Typically, partners involved in strategy definition spend a lot of energy, time, and attention in listening to market trends, in listing the firm’s strenghs and weaknesses, in planning communication campaigns, etc. But when it comes to “selling” the market strategy internally, they have no strategy, no SWOT analysis, no plans. Maybe they believe a supportive consensus will emerge spontaneously? Based on what I have seen, I would not bet on it.

I’d advise them to take partnership strategy seriously. Actually, market strategy is the easy part of strategic planning. Partnership strategy is the tricky one, because it forces to address issues we'd better leave in the dark, such as hidden conflicts, diverging opinions, or lack of commitment of certain partners. Unfortunately, you are fooling yourself if you think of strategy as just market strategy. Sooner or later - actually, the sooner the better -, you will need to spend as much attention and care on creating a consensus internally. Strategic planning that does not take that dimension into consideration is merely wishful thinking. 

Antoine Henry de Frahan | 4 July 2006 |