Author: Markus Westerlund

Strategy is my passion! I love to simplify complex work and finally squeeze the strategy on one single page, the Strategy 1Pager.

Strategy Implementation

3.01 The Presence Of Strategy In Everyday Business

Post author By Markus Westerlund
Post date April 12, 2021
3 Comments on 3.01 The Presence Of Strategy In Everyday Business

The presence of strategy in daily work — 3.01

Markus Westerlund

Strategy is my passion! I love to simplify complex work and finally squeeze the strategy on one single page, the Strategy 1Pager.

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Many organizations experience problems with the strategy becoming present in everyday business. You see, when you create the strategy, it easily remains hidden somewhere out of sight, and nobody looks at it until the next time the strategy is updated. A present strategy is what you need.

Three loops

This is an image of three loops from the strategy journey.

Here is, once again, our strategy model with three loops. In the first loop, we direct the company and find a direction we think will bring us success. In the second loop, we start steering the strategy implementation. Big goals get broken down into subgoals, which the management prioritizes. When goals are defined, we proceed to loop three, everyday operative work.

The link connecting the first and second loop often breaks. It’s one of the reasons why organizations fail to implement their strategy. If you want to ignite your company’s strategy, make the loops rotate and keep them linked.

Summarizing everything on a single page

The key with creating a Strategy 1Pager is to summarize everything to a single page.

The strategy crystallizes from many ideas. The unique thing about our work process is that we hold strategy meetings with the whole staff, where everyone is allowed to give comments. Meetings take place at the beginning, the middle, and the end of the strategy process. Workshops occur with expanded group composition.

A significant number of ideas are gathered, refined, and prioritized. In the end, the strategy gets crystallized onto a single page, Strategy 1Pager. Then the implementation process begins.

Strategy 1Pager

Meetings, meetings...

Several meetings take place in companies. The question is, is the strategy present in the meeting agendas? Unfortunately, I suspect that it is not actively present in that many meetings.

Operative tasks eat up the time

Operative matters quickly eat up all the time that people have reserved for thinking about the strategy. In another blog, I told you that important and urgent issues compete against each other. In this competition, urgent matters always win.

The talent is to have the strategic goals present during the meetings. How is it done in practice? There are better and worse solutions to that; however, I’ll explain one excellent approach and a new possibility for you.

How you lead and follow up progress

Use a digital board. Track progress through it.

Let’s move the strategy onto a digital board! Everybody can see the whole strategy and write comments onto cards, which get grouped according to goals. When your big goals are present on the board and separated into specific tasks, traffic lights show how strategy implementation progresses.

When the essential tasks are listed, staff can notice that one or several goals may no longer be optimal. Goals and tasks can influence each other, which creates an interesting dynamic. This dynamic between goals and tasks is a component of agile leadership, a living strategy. Staff can also notice quite fast if the goals have been completed. Once complete, the team can fill the void with new the following objectives.

The point is in how people lead themselves and follow up on the work. Is the work in sync with the strategy? When we have a digital board, it affects our work. The media is the message! When the board makes the things we pursue visible for us, we go towards our goals much more efficiently. This way the strategy becomes present.

The Purpose

Every business needs to have a Purpose, the sun, for it to exist. Some have written it down; others have not. The purpose is not only about earning money for the shareholders – even though it is essential. But we make more when the purpose is an answer to what you do for our customers.

If you involve the customer in this purpose, you suddenly earn more money for the shareholders. You get better success because you think outside-in instead of pushing out products from an inside-out perspective. That’s why the purpose must be visible on the strategy page.

A strategy implements the purpose. It helps you to implement it more efficiently for your customers. In the end, the strategy can be just a few sentences long—an elevator pitch.

The strategy consists of focus areas. What are the areas that need focus? These focus areas are written down clearly in the strategy. The next thing is identifying the big goals. There can’t be too many focus areas; three or four is often the right amount. Otherwise, your attention gets split on too many things, and nothing gets finished in time.

To reiterate the marmalade phenomenon: Every organization has a spoonful of marmalade and a certain number of toasts to butter. The management can’t pick too many toast pieces; otherwise, you won’t taste the marmalade.

In a large corporation, two focus areas can be too few, but five can be too many. In a smaller company, two or even one focus area can be enough. If a storm erupts, focus areas need prioritization. The company reduces the number of things receiving focus. In that situation, a big company might have only two focus areas. Storms can come from black swan events (unexpected events), like a global pandemic.

Goals and targets

It’s very vital that your company has a way to prioritize things, a hierarchy if you will.

It isn’t easy to implement a strategy if one merely goes with the flow and invents goals out of thin air. When the whole staff is involved in the strategy process, critical operative thinking always happens. The strategy and the focus areas get seen as high-quality ideas.

Without a satellite perspective, the ideas according to which the company operates lack sufficient perspective, in my opinion.

If you don’t understand your purpose for the customers, you don’t necessarily focus your energy on the most important things. If you only think about operative goals and tasks, you’re arranging deck chairs on the Titanic a few moments before the ship hits the iceberg. You also have to examine the road into the future.

Helicopter perspective

During the five-day war in Kuwait, general Schwarzkopf held daily press conferences. He said that it’s possible to make good decisions from the grassroots perspective; however, when one rises to the helicopter level, “then you know what to do.”

We can use Schwartzkopf’s approach as a good example. An organization, with a clear upper-level view, defines better goals for itself. Even in a one-person micro-enterprise, it’s beneficial to understand what should receive focus!

In smaller companies, the focus areas might often change, even every couple of months. The implementation of the focus areas takes longer in larger companies. They complete more comprehensive strategy rounds now and then. After that, it’s perfectly acceptable to look at the strategy quarterly. How is it doing, and has it progressed?

Safe stability is gone

These days companies need people to think about the most critical topics more frequently and faster. To those who believe that their industry isn’t changing rapidly, I say good luck. I’m afraid the time of safe stability is gone. One of the few safe things a company can do is stay constantly alert and sense what customers need. React immediately to sudden changes.

Following the big picture: trends and competition, etc.

The company staff must follow up the strategy implementation constantly.

You need continuous follow-up

A series of meetings is called a management system. The management system provides answers to various questions. What kind of meetings? What are the themes and mission of each session? How often are meetings held? What is the meeting agenda? What are things measured during the meeting?

Take a look at your management system and follow up on implementation progression progress now and then. During bad times if you don’t reach the goals, the management system meetings are held more frequently. A loose follow-up can lead to an inefficient way of working. Inefficiency can cause you not to reach the goals you’ve set out for yourself. That’s why it’s imperative to lead the strategy through the organization.

Leadership inside the organization

Look at the above image. Let’s pretend the management group is in the middle. It follows up on upper-level goals, but, in the meantime, every team in the organization has also interpreted what those high-level goals mean to them personally.

Now comes the trick. Everyone can, and should, have access to a digital board of their own, which links to the other boards through an internal logic. The goals and tasks are easily made visible on the board. Through this approach, the company ensures that the upper-level goals are, within reason, broken down into subgoals.

Some time ago, I was facilitating the strategy creation process in a large corporation. The process took place over multiple days. On the second day, the idea was to set goals for the fourth quarter, but suddenly the conversation changed the process agenda and gave birth to a new Strategy 1Pager. And that’s what we did. The strategy didn’t change, but we noticed the focus areas needed to be updated.

Bottom up!

Together we defined the new big focus areas and created everything from the bottom up. We browsed through the essential topics. The most critical matters passed the filter. As a result, the Strategy 1Pager contents changed. In retrospect, a person could think we made an extensive strategy round, but we only ended up changing the focus areas.

Even though the corporation in question is a billion-dollar company, it’s beginning to be quite agile. Agility has developed over several years. Decisions aren’t carved in stone. When we modified the 1Pager, we merely documented the new situation! It was a surprise to everyone; it wasn’t the plan to even make a new one-page strategy. The strategy stayed the same even if the focus areas changed.

Every team has a separate function. The important thing is how the teams begin to implement them.

Today's point: Continuous Prioritization

The point of the day is constantly prioritizing by using a digital board. Strategy becomes present in everyday life—staff sails within the sector defined by the chosen strategy. Every day staff senses from which direction the wind blows. Sensing like this enables everyone to act with agility.

The Purpose gives the staff and customers energy. People get inspired when actions align with the purpose. The team goes along because everybody works towards a great thing. A great purpose means customers get help. Customers are thrilled when they can access the expertise they need.

If you want the strategy to be present in your everyday life, you must prioritize constantly. The strategy must be part of the meeting agenda in the weekly meetings! It may sound overwhelming, but it’s not. You only need one board, in which the strategy is visible all the time!

Do this correctly, and your strategy will become present and steer your daily activities!

Ignite your strategy! Read more.🔥

Finding Us On Social Media

Stradigo

Stradigo is a brand owned by Rdigo Oy (Business-ID: 2120844-1).

Learn more from our Imprint.

Rdigo Oy is registered in Finland as a Limited company. We are a strategy consultancy located in the Helsinki capital region.

We’ve been in business since 2007. The company name comes from the latin word Redigo, meaning both ‘I shape’ & ‘I renew’.

Stradigo combines the word strategy with Rdigo.

Strategic Leadership

2.02 Kickstarting strategy implementation

Post author By Markus Westerlund
Post date April 7, 2021
1 Comment on 2.02 Kickstarting strategy implementation

Kickstarting strategy implementation — 2.02

Markus Westerlund

Strategy is my passion! I love to simplify complex work and finally squeeze the strategy on one single page, the Strategy 1Pager.

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Once the strategy is ready, how does the organization kickstart the strategy implementation?

The Strategy Journey of a company described as three connected loops.

I’m excited about the above strategy model! It’s simple, and it shows the journey clearly from a helicopter perspective.

Kickstarting strategy implementation: The Three Loops

In the first loop, the company’s direction becomes defined. Everyone receives an invite to join the creation process. People challenge their assumptions and the prevailing thinking inside the company. Tough choices get made, and, in the end, the whole strategy becomes visible on a single page. We call this one-page strategy a Strategy 1Pager.

Let’s take a look at the second loop, prioritize. That’s when the company steers itself through strategy implementation. Don’t expect things to get going by themselves. The management has to kickstart implementation. The ideas written down on the Strategy 1Pager, are often high-quality ideas. That’s why sub-goals, prioritization, and resourcing are essential. People are given responsibilities for specific tasks to steer the implementation and to follow up on their progress. The second loop needs to rotate weekly, which is much faster than the first loop. The first loop rotates quarterly. The second loop is all about following up on the goals.

The third loop represents everyday work. If the company runs into unsolvable problems inside the third loop, it typically occurs inside the second loop. If the problem, for some reason, can’t be solved inside the second loop, then the issue gets addressed inside the first loop.

PowerPoint vs. Digital board

The strategy, typically, is presented as a PowerPoint slideshow. By doing this, the aim becomes to deliver the strategy in a clear form. Unfortunately, PowerPoint slides are static, which means they don’t function as a living document. Companies can make the strategy alive by setting up a digital board that tracks implementation. Whiteboards with sticky notes can work, but this approach is location restricted. A living digital board with cards and columns avoids issues caused by on-location challenges and the analog nature of pen and paper. You can feasibly use any software out there that you like. At Stradigo, we prefer to go with either Trello or Planner because they are popular. People are familiar with them. Familiarity is useful.

Digital boards have a use as a strategy steering tool. Prioritization becomes very straightforward. Free software, like Trello, give us all the functionality that we require to benefit in practice. I recommend some of the many free alternatives. The base functionality is the same in most digital board software out there. If your organization already uses a specific IT ecosystem, then you may already have software in mind.

The significant reason to use a digital board is to have a shared surface everybody can write on simultaneously. It becomes a platform for the company where each column on the board represents one focus area.

See how the strategy implementation becomes reality

The idea of using a digital board is to have a common platform where everybody can write at the same time. Each column on the board makes up a single focus area. Each card on the board, inside the columns, represents a specific task, a bit like sticky notes on a whiteboard. This truly helps with kickstarting the strategy implementation.

When the company prioritizes actions, it acquires clarity about implementation needs and what order things must occur. Thanks to this, the strategy remains relevant and active in front of everyone’s eyes without pause. An agile strategy has been born. Follow-up the strategy implementation frequently, for example, through weekly or bi-weekly meetings. Frequent follow-up creates a bridge between the plan and operative work. The entire organization sees the same board and acts on it.

The shared digital board is visible to the whole organization, allowing everybody to see how the strategy implementation becomes a reality. Deploying this type of setup is an opportunity for every organization, no matter what size it is.

An interesting phenomenon also happens. When the strategy is on a digital board, it starts to live. It remains up-to-date because the staff updates it almost every week. Likewise, the focus areas live with the times and adapt to suit the needs of the organization. I’m not talking about minor things but significant focus areas—the type of focus areas visible in the strategy, significant decisions. Nowadays, I believe that a company shouldn’t have four focus areas because that is too much to handle. Three would be the optimum number so that that focus won’t split between too many places.

The Marmalade Phenomenon

I have spoken earlier about the marmalade phenomenon, which, in my opinion, is the best piece of advice for leaders. It goes like this. Every organization has a tablespoon worth of marmalade, representing resources, capabilities, machines, IT, staff, etc. The management must choose the right amount of toasts to use it on. Not too many and not too few. After that, the spoonful of marmalade gets spread onto the chosen number of toasts. For example, if there are 31 pieces of toast (big tasks), there’s not enough marmalade for them all, and so the toasts taste only like dough. If that happens, people start to demand more resources. Whenever I tell this story, I follow it up with a harsh comment:

“You have the exact amount of resources you are worth! You need to know how to choose and prioritize!”

The amount of money coming in determines the number of available resources. The question is how you use your available resources. If you lead badly, you butter too many toasts. What is the right amount of toasts? That is the question.

During the strategy journey, a risk exists that the three loops of the strategy journey can detach. I have covered the strategy loops in greater detail in separate blog entries. The organization may store the strategic plan inside a PowerPoint file, where it remains forgotten until it a review takes place a year later. If the strategic plan is in a digital board form, the second loop will rotate weekly, and the strategy remains living. The necessary actions, the tasks, are constantly present and visible in front of all staff members. This is how you kickstart the strategy implementation!

The strategy ignites, and a successful journey begins! Read more.🔥

Finding Us On Social Media

Stradigo

Stradigo is a brand owned by Rdigo Oy (Business-ID: 2120844-1).

Learn more from our Imprint.

Rdigo Oy is registered in Finland as a Limited company. We are a strategy consultancy located in the Helsinki capital region.

We’ve been in business since 2007. The company name comes from the latin word Redigo, meaning both ‘I shape’ & ‘I renew’.

Stradigo combines the word strategy with Rdigo.

Strategic Planning

1.01 A Successful Strategy is a Journey

Post author By Markus Westerlund
Post date March 28, 2021
9 Comments on 1.01 A Successful Strategy is a Journey

A Successful Strategy is a Journey — 1.01

Markus Westerlund

Strategy is my passion! I love to simplify complex work and finally squeeze the strategy on one single page, the Strategy 1Pager.

Share this blog

Welcome to the first blog! This blog is part of a series that will center on a concept I call the Strategy Journey and the experiences I have had with it over the years.

Strategic planning

Strategic Planning is a challenging process. First, it is pretty hard to understand the strategy and how it helps the company grow and be profitable. Plus, it is not enough to have a strategic plan; you also need to implement it. Strategy implementation can be even more challenging than strategic planning. Without successful execution, strategic planning will not bring about practical benefits.

The above model is new, and we have titled it the Strategy Journey. We developed the model because some perceive strategy as a word that is hard to understand, almost like rocket science, or very abstract.

We think that is not the case. Once the company has written a strategic plan, the strategy is simple to understand. The terminology (strategy) causes problems for some people. It can be hard to understand. We have tried to replace it with some other word that is easier to understand. Strategy is an established word.

So, what is a strategy? The shortest and most straightforward explanation we have is this:

Strategy is HOW

How do you launch yourself into the future? What is the Strategy Journey?

Strategy is a journey

Strategy is a journey. And one must keep upgrading it regularly. I had an epiphany while attending a conference in Nashville, Tennessee. He woke up at four in the morning because of jetlag and got to work. He made a realization. Strategy updates do not need to take place once a year in the form of an annual cycle. Instead, we can visualize everything as a Strategy Journey that consists of three parallel streams. Each stream is like a loop that revolves at a different speed compared to the other two.

We call the first loop Direct (We Direct), which is also known as strategic planning. During this loop, the business directs its operations towards the desired future. We use “we” because people in the business work together with the help of technology. Technology allows companies to do strategic planning efficiently, even when involving many people.

The three loops of the strategy process

The first loop needs to revolve in every business, and if the strategy is only updated once a year, then the speed is often too slow. Most firms need to do a review far more frequently. Quarterly reviews may be much more suitable for many companies. Once done with the planning, the company continues to phase two, Prioritize (We Prioritize). Big goals need to be adjusted. The organization must ramp up the implementation efforts. In this case, ramp-up means systematic follow-up of the implementation. The organization adapts its priorities, activities and follows-up performance weekly.

The daily activity takes place inside the third loop, Act (We Act). Once you have your new strategic plan, you quickly get stuck in this phase. When this happens, companies forget about the strategic plan. It falls into the background. Everyone goes with the flow weekly and daily. Going with the flow can work for a time, but often people drop to the floor when they lose touch with the core idea behind the strategy.

All three loops need to be linked together

The point of the Strategy Journey is that all three loops are linked together. Goals come out of the first loop and are compressed and concretized in the second loop. A big mistake you can make is not to keep them linked. Once your strategic plan becomes a PowerPoint presentation, a gap typically forms between your strategy and implementation.

For a long time, we have used the sun as our symbol to describe the Purpose of a client. It is the big benefit the customers receive that, in a sense, is the reason for the company’s existence. The company is not just earning money for business owners. Of course, making money is essential; otherwise, a business owner wouldn’t risk his capital in a risky business. But, if the idea is that we are helping clients, they are pleased and pay compensation for the work, of course. The more we help our clients, the more they are ready to pay compensation for the help they get.

The sun shines upon the whole system and is already in existence today. The Purpose is not some futuristic vision somewhere. It shines both today and tomorrow. In the future, it shines even more profoundly and vibrantly because the business has improved itself.

The Direct phase in a nutshell

We intend to go through all phases one by one. Let us start from We Direct. It is a traditional strategic planning process. Let us say the process runs and is ongoing, usually during spring. Everybody is ecstatic at the end of the process! The company management is pleased that they have finally completed a complicated thing, so they hold a briefing for the entire staff.

The Staff Briefing

The CEO of the company explains everything in an hour-long session. When he has finished and showed multiple slides on PowerPoint, it is time for questions. There is always one hand that rises, and the person poses the same question:

“What does this mean in practice?”

Then the CEO should be able to explain what the upper-level idea behind the strategic plan is in practice. Well, he has an answer. Still, most staff are present, and they ask what this all means for their work. It is not the CEO’s job to know. Sometimes I say that the correct answer to that question (which the CEO technically should give but usually does not dare to say…) is:

“Listen, friend, the reason I have hired you is to figure out what this means for your work. I cannot do your work for you! I am trying to figure out my work. Take care of your part.”

… But that is not how it goes. The CEO has to say something concrete.

‘We direct’ means that we decide a sector based on what the sun directs us to do. We sail within the sector every week and month and figure out the best course for today.

Some points why to involve everyone in the strategy process

We have listed four points that have developed through my experiences in this field.

The first point is that you get a significant effect on this process if you invite everybody to participate in the strategy journey from the very beginning. In the old world, this is a radical thing to suggest. In that world, the managers decide the strategy. Inviting others does not happen.

The given reasons are:

A.) They do not understand

B.) It is too expensive to include everybody

Both reasons are myths. They are busted.

A.) They understand the high-level idea

B.) It’s no longer expensive to include everybody in the process and to hold a large online meeting. All thanks to technology!

How the workshops look like in practice

My record is 157 people in a single workshop. With Zoom, I could divide people into 50 breakout rooms. Then we ask them to give written feedback. With good facilitation, this is truly a quick process. The whole process took only three weeks. Everyone participated, and the CEO of the company was astounded at the efficiency. Usually, in larger organizations, it can take up to six weeks. The speed of the process is not defined by a third-party facilitator but by their schedules. Their calendars define how much time they can afford to put into operative work.

A workshop once a week is ok, but no more workshops that last a full day or even two full days. Instead, have a three-hour workshop with the whole group: One-hour kickoff and two hours of hard work.

Invite everyone to take part in the strategy process to save money

Invite everyone because it is not as expensive as persuading everyone to commit to a strategy created inside a board room in isolation. The attempt is unlikely to succeed, and failure means wasted time, which translates to lost money. When people have been participating in strategic planning from the beginning, they understand it. And then an interesting phenomenon happens. These people are beginning to experience that it is their strategy.

”We weren’t taking part in the CEO’s process; we did this genuinely together, and we own this result!”

On an emotional level, it’s pretty terrific! Young people are so excited that they get to witness the creation of the strategy, and they learn how to direct, prioritize and act it out!

Challenging beliefs and myths

During the process, one must be able to challenge one’s beliefs and myths. The new CEO is often good at it because they see everything with a fresh eye and begin questioning things. An experienced third-party facilitator can be valuable because they are not in the circle playing the political game of resources and work positions. They can ask simple, but killer questions and can share their knowledge and experience with other organizations.

As I write this, I’m in my 91st strategy process facilitation. Every process teaches you something! If you’re doing this for the first or third time, I can say that they are small things. How does one make a group think and pull out the information from their heads? Usually, extroverts steal airtime. But even though an introvert won’t fight for their turn to speak and doesn’t necessarily enjoy performing, they might have written down the best idea in the crowd. We must be able to step outside the box. Good questions bring a lot of value, and they can profoundly affect the outcome of the entire strategy process. The company must, of course, analyze the outside world and see where the trends lie. From there, we pick and choose and make big decisions. Once we have made all these decisions at the very end, they are all compressed into a one-page strategy (essential).

Prioritize

Now we go into the second phase of the strategy process, Prioritize. The strategy is ready as a one-page strategy, the Strategy 1Pager. During creation, tough decisions have likely occurred, and focus areas have crystallized. Now the focus areas need to be specified into sub-goals and be prioritized. Who is responsible for what? Another decision relates to presentation. Should the strategy be written on a slide or documented on a digital board? Slides are static, while everyone can easily access digital boards. If the plan is on a digital board, the business strategy becomes a living document.

Act

Next, we look at everyday work, which is loop 3. Rotation takes place inside every business. The question is, do we work in an old manner? There has been a good way of doing things. Have we benefited from technology and understood that there would be a much more efficient way to do it.

Customer journey means we analyze our customer’s value-creating process and their way of providing value to their customers. Do we understand their way of working, the process, and do we know the situations they encounter? Situations where they realize they need help from a third-party. People have concerns, no matter the situation. We know what these situations are. They need a solution, and a need is always the answer. That’s why I always tell salespeople not to ask a customer what they need.

The need is the answer. Let’s say my concern is that I’m thirsty. What do I need? A beer. Beer is the answer to thirst. But if I, or you, ask a customer about their need, I delegate the solution responsibility to an amateur because I’m a professional in my field. The customer might answer, but their know-how restricts their ability to respond. They don’t know what the newest things are. It’s your responsibility to say,

“Sure, I can help you with this, but there is a new solution to this. Would you like to hear more about it?” – Yes, they do.

The Big Picture - The Full Strategy Process

When we look at the big picture, we see that three loops need to revolve, and they need to connect. Introducing technology takes matters to the next level.

Currently, I’m working with a billion-dollar company, and they’re not very far in utilizing digital technology as a group. They, of course, use digital technology in their work but mostly individually. Conversations and developments take place under a digital infrastructure. That’s when you have group power. And in most cases, this entirely free if you know how to use the tools and methods! They are very affordable.

When you invite everyone to participate in the first loop, it affects people’s attitudes, and they start implementation right away. Very cool! How do you begin to lead your business in a new way at a management level and the next level, and the next level so that everyone understands the big picture?

Automatic Reporting

One point is also the fact that people complain about the lack of communication. Why don’t people let others know what they’re doing? Why is information moving poorly? I have an easy explanation for that. First of all, when I do something, I should report my doings. I don’t have the time to explain everything that’s happening because it would take as much time, and I wouldn’t progress with my work since I have to report constantly.

If you have an infrastructure that automatically reports to you and you write everything onto a digital board, the decisions are visible for everyone who wants to look. You can even activate notifications. It’s fantastic. If we lack infrastructure, the information won’t communicate to other people in the organization as effectively.

All the loops of the strategy process need to revolve at their speed and link to one another. The first loop very easily gets detached from the others after a month or so has passed. When the first loop detaches, the second and third loops collapse, and we don’t get sufficiently high-quality ideas that the business needs.

Finding Us On Social Media

Stradigo

Stradigo is a brand owned by Rdigo Oy (Business-ID: 2120844-1).

Learn more from our Imprint.

Rdigo Oy is registered in Finland as a Limited company. We are a strategy consultancy located in the Helsinki capital region.

We’ve been in business since 2007. The company name comes from the latin word Redigo, meaning both ‘I shape’ & ‘I renew’.

Stradigo combines the word strategy with Rdigo.

Customer Strategy

5.03 Customer Segmentation

Customer Segmentation — 5.03

Markus Westerlund

Strategy is my passion! I love to simplify complex work and finally squeeze the strategy on one single page, the Strategy 1Pager.

Share this blog

Today’s topic is customer segmentation. Do you know what the definition of work is? Work is about removing people’s troubles and worries. These people are called customers. Customers’ have different types of worries, because everyone is an individual. It would be easy if we could sell the same product to everyone! Then we could specialize only in one service or product. What could we do to get efficiency into our work? The answer, of course, is by segmenting customers into groups!

I have been doing segmentation work ever since 1996. For 11 years it was a full-time job for me, and now I create strategies. The goal of almost every strategy is to improve the organization’s segmentation and customer experience. I have a great desire to simplify complexity, and over the years it has become my passion. Now I will explain how customer segmentation can be simplified and how it can even be made into an art.

Work on your customer segmentation

Because of these insights we have created a mini-course on customer segmentatio, which allows you to work on your own segmentation. You read more about it here.

Why segment customers?

Precision offerings. Why should customers be segmented? They need to be given an offer that tackles their need specifically. When the offer strikes the customer’s worry and need exactly, things run smoothly. I use the word worry, because the need is the answer. The customer has a worry, and we satisfy the need by providing a solution. The customer is happy that we got rid of their worry, and therefore they thank us by paying us.

More sales. Another dimension is, of course, our self-interest. We want more sales, because that’s the way our company grows. It is also the way we are able to pay everyone’s salaries. The more customers we are able to help, the better we have carried out our purpose. It isn’t necessarily only about sharing dividends to the shareholders. It’s about growing sales, helping customers, which is a fine societal task – You could even say our duty.

Better profitability. When we finally know how to compose offerings that tackle the customer’s need with precision, we can then make the whole process more fluent and profitable for ourselves. This creates a win-win situation between us and the customer. We both benefit a great deal from it.

Value for us. The customer base is often visualized as a pyramid. I have for many years simplified this work. Customers can be divided into groups according to their importance: Gold-Silver-Bronze, for example. To us, certain customers are Gold-customers, Silver-customers, or Bronze-customers. The trick is to divide the customers into these groups, based on how valuable they are to us in a monetary sense.

During a flight safety demonstration, it is mentioned that the oxygen mask should be put on yourself before helping others. If we don’t stay alive, we’re not capable of helping others. That’s why our self-interest comes first.

Customer needs. Another way to divide customers according to a customer dimension, in which customers are segmented based to their needs, which I earlier described as worries. This creates a segmentation model. I’ve learned not to make things too complicated!

Back in the day, we made a mistake by making the segments too detailed and intelligent in appearance. Because of this our customers weren’t able to implement the model. In the previous pyramid image, we divide it into six segments. For some companies even a six-way split can be a lot! A division by two vertical segments are usually a pretty good, sometimes three works as well. The next image has examples of various ways a company can segment its pyramid.

Some companies may only have one segment, where every customer has the same needs. In addition, there are three value categories, and several varieties of them. Segmentation is often done intuitively, and after a moment of thinking the solution turns out to be completely different. It isn’t easy-peasy.

One option is to have one Gold-customer, all the rest being Bronze-customers. It’s also possible to have no Gold-customers. Services and offerings are usually tailored to them. Usually, consumer businesses only have Bronze-customers. For instance, McDonalds only has one type of customers. They have different products, but they deliver the same way to everyone.

After 10 years of doing this for a living, I decided to buy a marketing automation software. It taught me not to segment companies, but individuals. My head just about exploded!

Could it be, that even in B2B customer relationships selling should be aimed at individuals, persons, avatars? That’s human-to-human business. Suddenly, segmenting became even more interesting, but also more challenging. Which model would bring the most success?

Drawing the above image took me 10 years. I often tried to explain this verbally, but I didn’t know how to describe it as an image. Then finally I succeeded! This image shows which products and services we sell to different segments. It is why we’ve created a mini-course that supports you in doing your segmentation by using this very model. Click here to learn more.

There exists a basic model offer, that is grey and can fit for any customer. Then there is a white offer or service, which fits the first segment. The blue module only fits only the second segment, and those customers don’t want the white one.

When we rise to the Silver level, we can begin to tailor our services, because these customers buy more and they pay more. That’s why they can also be offered silver modules. Modules can be sold separately or they can be bundled into an offer. Some want solutions, others want to purchase the modules separately.

Gold level customers can be sold everything, in addition to a tailored gold module.

Care models. On the right side of the image you can find the care models. There are many Bronze-customers, and they buy less. Bronze-customers need to have a well standardized care model, in order to optimize our service and to lower our costs. Nowadays these often are online businesses. As we go up to the Silver level, the care model consist of more tailored services and F2F communication. Gold-customers have a largely custom tailored care model. We also cover how you work with the care model in our mini-course on customer segmentation. Click here to learn more.

Segmentation model. The catch is to do segmentation in two dimensions. Value for us and value for the customer. Products are built so that the customer gets an offer that precisely tackles their situation. Precision products are delivered with a care model, which are differentiated to varying degrees of extent.

As you see, this isn’t the easiest job in the world. I can, however, say that this is the simplest presentation I’m able to produce about this! The most challenging thing is to build the products. That is something that makes me humble, every time!

As many as seven versions are created in segmentation work before the iteration begins to slow down. There are so many options to choose from. If you segment like your competitors, you end up analyzing similar needs and services as them. If we look at this from a differentiation angle, it would be really good if you could group the entire cake according to specific criteria.

Precision offering is the trick. It creates happy customers who buy more, while our company grows and the work becomes more profitable.

Would you like to work on your customer segmentation? Click Here to learn more. 🔥

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Stradigo

Stradigo is a brand owned by Rdigo Oy (Business-ID: 2120844-1).

Learn more from our Imprint.

Rdigo Oy is registered in Finland as a Limited company. We are a strategy consultancy located in the Helsinki capital region.

We’ve been in business since 2007. The company name comes from the latin word Redigo, meaning both ‘I shape’ & ‘I renew’.

Stradigo combines the word strategy with Rdigo.

Strategic Leadership

2.05 Agile Hybrid Organization

Post author By Markus Westerlund
Post date March 22, 2021
3 Comments on 2.05 Agile Hybrid Organization

Agile Hybrid Organization | 2.05

Markus Westerlund

Strategy is my passion! I love to simplify complex work and finally squeeze the strategy on one single page, the Strategy 1Pager.

We held an amazing workshop online, and I’m so excited about it. We modified the strategies from the perspective of an individual and from a customer perspective. We came to a realization that we are building an agile hybrid organization. I need to share this with you.

This image below is our old friend, the hierarchical organization. This style of hierarchy is not doing very well in the present day. Even though it has immensely good features, it also has great weaknesses.

Hierarchichal organization

It’s interesting, that in a hierarchical organization everything needs to be flipped upside down every 3-4 years. A new CEO comes in and decides that things should be done the other way around, with the reason that the other way is “as it should be done”. Then after a while the same pattern repeats.

I have gained experience in this subject. No matter which organization model one creates, in a few years the cons grow bigger and the strenghts are no longer as strong as in the beginning. Because of this the model needs to be changed once again, which the CEO thinks is the biggest innovation. Sometimes the organization is organized into a matrix organisation, at other times the organization gets organized according to functions. It can also be something else, depends on what the CEO wants. That’s everyday life.

Let’s look at why the hierarchical organization is doing poorly.

Hierarchy is slow in action

The main reason why hierarchical organizations are doing poorly is that they are slow organizations. The slowness comes from this. If I have a problem, I need to ask upstairs for permission. The bigger the issue, the higher up the person needs to go in the organization to get permission. If the issue goes flat, the response never comes back down. Decisions aren’t being made. Instead, the issue is left hanging in the air waiting for the next meeting. This causes the customer to suffer, because decisions are not made. Many draw the above model upside-down, so that customers are on top and the management are on the bottom. However, it’s only a semantic change. A hierarchical organization is slow, and doesn’t tend to cope well with the competition, who oftentimes are much faster to react and to decide. A better meeting structure could help.

Less profitable

Another problem with the hierarchical organization is that it’s less profitable. Say what? Exactly. When matters are sustainable, profitability decreases. Lead time isn’t fast enough and the inventory doesn’t move. Surprise, surprise! Higher profitability models exist! Profitability is everyone’s advantage because salaries will continue being paid, customers are number one and the customers are happy. The owners, as well, tend to get more dividends because the company earns more money, which it doesn’t know how to invest properly, so the money is returned to the investors and owners as larger dividends.

Expensive to upkeep

The third problem is that the hierarchical organization is also expensive to upkeep. People need to be controlled and a huge amount of key performance indicators are created. What can’t be measured, doesn’t exist. Reward systems need to be looked at through the indicators, and that’s expensive. As you may guess, controlling costs money. That’s oversight in a nutshell. The more that needs to be measured, the more control measures need to be deployed, and that adds to costs. Simple, right?

Demotivating

The fourth problem is on an emotional level. The hierarchical organization is often demotivating. People don’t like having to wait and not being allowed to do what’s reasonable.

But, a hierarchy has its advantages.

Clear

First of all, it’s really clear and people desire clarity! People know exactly who’s where and who’s in charge of what.

Good in crisis

Hierarchy is fantastic in a crisis situation. You give orders, and that’s that. That’s pretty amazing. This ability can’t be lost! If it’s lost, we lose a lot.

Measure of success

To many individuals, hierarchy is also the measure of success. If I go high up in the hierarchy, it’s pretty motivating, almost like winning an Olympic medal.

Teams discuss and decide

Another organizational extremity is not to have a hierarchy at all. Instead, a team organization is created, where people are completely self-managing. This has already been in use since the 1950s. It works! However, it needs common ground rules, a Game Book, so that things aren’t going all over the place.

Quite many are scared to switch into a complete self-managing model. The word self-managing is in itself pretty bad. A business owner easily gets scared that people will just start doing whatever they want.

Visions of organization

I found the above image in Perttu Salovaara’s PhD Thesis. He named the image “Visions of organization”. It has two axis, co-operation and leadership. There’s not too much co-operation on the bottom level, only individualism. Co-operation begins in the middle, in teams, and spreads up to the top level.

The leadership axis has three stages. Is leadership completely top-down and lead from the outside? Or, is it involving, or are people given permission to self-manage? Salovaara came up with nine models. It’s a good image because the myriad of possibilities are made clear. It’s not so, that the next step from a total hierarchy is a total self-managing model. There’s so much in between!

At Stradigo, we consider simplification as part of our organizational DNA. I’ve wondered if Salovaara’s MATRIX could be simplified. That’s when the idea of an agile hybrid organization model struck me. What if we built a hybrid, in which hierarchy and team leading are combined?

Agile hybrid organization

Let’s build an agile hybrid organization with self-managing teams. The hierarchical organization stays in the background. That’s when we have a spine and agile teams. Teams are where most of the work is done. Teams come and go, as necessary. The home team, of course, is where one works the most, but in addition to that, there are many other teams one is a part of. They are on top of the hierarchy.

In a world like this, it isn’t important to communicate through the hierarchy. Anyone can speak to whom they like without the manager getting upset. Please, don’t get upset! People must trust themself and their leadership skills in order to not mind this taking place, that is, if their boss chooses to go past you, for example, by talking directly with your subordinates. The decision is made where the best information is.

When I presented this idea at one of my clients, the idea immediately got a round of applause. The agile hybrid organization model is therefore a most natural thing! People said that, yes, this is how it is, this is already how we operate. So, let’s make it formal! Let’s make the organization both clear and agile!

Now quick decisions can be made where the information is. When hierarchy retreats into the background, but doesn’t fade, and people are allowed to do what’s reasonable, a level of autonomy is created that is strongly motivating. Control improves, because the team members control each other, so that the team makes reasonable decisions.

As a young man I used to work at Nokia Electronics. No-one knew in which direction the world was going, as the new area of business was developing rapidly. A “Let all flowers bloom” culture spread throughout the company, yet there was a hierarchy, and it was in the background. It didn’t interfere with practicalities.

Individuals have several roles

Because an individual is a member of several teams, they have plenty of different colored t-shirts in their bag. One team has a certain colored shirt, and when a person switches teams, their t-shirt color and role changes. This has been studied around the world. According to one study one person had approximately 6,8 roles. Therefore, we all have many roles, perhaps even seven, like in the image above.

If you’re a CEO of a company, you, as well, have many different roles. One role is active when you’re a member of the board. Another role is when you’re leading your own management team. The third role is when you’re speaking to a customer. The fourth role is when you’re speaking to the investors, and so on. You might also be a part of several customer projects as a great salesperson. All of us have many roles just like this, no matter what role or responsibility we happen to have at any one given time.

This is a question I’ve been asked many times. I always say that there’s no specific person that defines the roles. WHAT?! Let people define the roles for themselves!

A senior HR consultant once told me:

“You know, Markus. Half of Finland’s HR people write standing orders, and the other half tries to implement them.”

It’s completely useless if roles and their definitions are written down somewhere. The definition of work changes constantly! Let people define their roles for themselves, within the appropriate boundaries, of course. The definition creates the lines, but after that, write your own work definitions! Team members write a card on a common digital board, in which the role is shortly described. Everyone gets to pick a sensible and pleasant role for themselves. The team discusses what needs to be added and agrees on it.

Towards the sun by helping customers

One must remember that our job is to help the customers. That’s why the company exists. It’s the big sun and the Purpose. People share in this Purpose and agree that it is important, and they rejoice since they can help.

When a team exists, it must sense and react immediately to the customer’s needs. That’s when the team is doing well.

Everything I’ve told you isn’t new information. This is actually about making documentation transparent. There are millions of self-managing teams all over the world. Since the 1950’s humans have created a new way to organize. Hierarchy and self-management have existed, and there are plenty of companies that work as a hybrid. The transformation, however, can be slightly painful, if a proper Game Book isn’t written.

Ground rules

One must define a handful of central ground rules: For example, in soccer it’s not allowed to kick other players in the legs, and only the goalkeeper can catch the ball with their hands. Some rules are needed, in order for these two organization levels to work well together.

I have facilitated the transformation of a Finnish company into a self-managing model. I suspect that this is among the first transformations in the country, perhaps even the very first. No matter what the truth of the matter is regarding this “firstness”, it is not that common to see these types of transformations in practice. This is quite a new thing after all! What happened after the transformation? This organization’s profit grew with two million euros in their first year post-transformation. We have also created many Gamebooks to tens of organizations.

What kind of rules give us and our customers the WOW feeling? It’s funny that WOW actually stands for Way-Of-Working. New central game rules should be written down in the Gamebook! I always tend to use volunteers for this.

A Gamebook is needed to make all this work out in practice.

Long live the agile hybrid organization!

IGNITE YOUR STRATEGY! Read more.🔥

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Stradigo

Stradigo is a brand owned by Rdigo Oy (Business-ID: 2120844-1).

Learn more from our Imprint.

Rdigo Oy is registered in Finland as a Limited company. We are a strategy consultancy located in the Helsinki capital region.

We’ve been in business since 2007. The company name comes from the latin word Redigo, meaning both ‘I shape’ & ‘I renew’.

Stradigo combines the word strategy with Rdigo.

Strategic Planning

1.13 Assumptions of the Strategy

Post author By Markus Westerlund
Post date March 22, 2021
2 Comments on 1.13 Assumptions of the Strategy

Assumptions of the Strategy — 1.13

Markus Westerlund

Strategy is my passion! I love to simplify complex work and finally squeeze the strategy on one single page, the Strategy 1Pager.

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Today, I’m talking about the assumptions of the strategy. But first, let me begin with a wise quote:

This is a quote from futurologist Kjell A. Nordström, and a fantastic one at that! It means that everything we think about the future is merely assumptions and guesses. A mastermind, who accurately predicts tomorrow’s events, simply doesn’t exist. Probabilities can be calculated, but they are all guesses. I’m beginning to think that this is a very wise quote.

To go forward, we must live at the mercy of assumptions. We make good predictions about the future, but they are nothing more than beliefs. Very interesting.

Strategy is built on top of our current assumptions

Strategy is a journey from point A to point B, and it is built on top of our current assumptions. The point is that no one actually knows what point B is. It will become clear later down the road! If you try to define point B, you might not end up there, because a better waypoint was discovered along the way.

In fact, we are proceeding within a specific sector. A sector is my best metaphor for the strategy. The borders of the sector are defined by the strategy, and people are given the task to find the best direction within the sector. However, at the beginning of the journey the situation often looks like this:

We are in point A, and we define our sector in which we wish to travel. However, we don’t know what point B will be. Point B represents the target we intend to reach. While we travel inside the sector, we constantly encounter various challenges. The people, that work with us inside the business, are tasked with finding the best path forward, while staying inside the sector at the same time. It is a bit like navigating a boat. You constantly sense and respond to changes and find the best course while on the sea. Because of this the staff will be able to reach point B in due course.

Agile strategy

I believe that thinking about the future in this manner lays the groundwork for an agile strategy. I believe agile strategies are more competitive than a carefully planned linear strategy. Linear strategies have an issue. Even if the organization spends a huge amount of time to plan out everything meticulously, including the end point, the strategic plan will end up becoming outdated very quickly as the world moves along. It can even be outdated tomorrow.

So, why invest so much time and money into something that easily becomes outdated? Doesn’t feel like a terribly smart idea, which is why we can circumvent these issues by creating an agile strategy instead. The most dangerous thing an organization could do with a linear plan is that it starts to believe in the plan. If belief is strong, then the organization runs the risk of losing its sensitivity to changes. People may see what is going on, but it is too difficult to adapt because the established plan takes precedence. In a sense, death by bureaucracy.

Assumptions define the quality of strategy

It’s a good idea to clarify the assumption, and also to challenge them. If we have a good assumption, it creates a good strategy.

If we have a bad assumption, it creates a bad strategy. It’s quite simple in the end. The challenge is that assumptions are often invisible, just hanging in the air.

Every community and company has assumptions, but they haven’t been made visible. That’s why we aren’t necessarily aware of what the strategy is being built upon.

Challenge

These assumptions can be about the market, customers, products, etc. I believe that assumptions should be visualized and vigorously challenged. Outdated assumptions are not a good foundation to build on.

I have challenged assumptions for many years through my career. I can say from experience that three of the ten most important assumptions within the organization about the market may be outdated. Before they were competitive, but now something has changed. Assumptions no longer create a competitive advantage for the organization, on the contrary, they have become a burden and they are in fact slowing it down. If business continues as usual, with the actions built on top of these outdated assumptions, the organization loses out!

Technology often enables change to take place and it challenges old beliefs. One must constantly be able to spot when the game changes. That’s why it’s good to find out how technology is able to help you, and to realize which assumptions are outdated and which ones are valid.

Challenge the mantras!

Challenge your mantras! Whether we’re talking about a company or a community, mantras begin to form in practice. We begin to repeat the key beliefs of success. Slowly it becomes dangerous because we begin to believe them ever stronger. “You start to believe your own bullshit”, as someone brilliantly said.

It is often smart to bring in an experienced third party, because they are able to challenge with fresh input and questions. A third party also isn’t part of the inner political game, which always exists in a company.

The appropriate way of challenging could be crucially important if you wish to create a good strategy journey into the future.

Good assumptions lead to a good strategy, and a good strategy is very exciting! It’s great to be involved in executing the purpose, the sun. It’s great to be a part of the winning game. Success is a great motivator.

Ignite your strategy! Read more.🔥

Finding Us On Social Media

Stradigo

Stradigo is a brand owned by Rdigo Oy (Business-ID: 2120844-1).

Learn more from our Imprint.

Rdigo Oy is registered in Finland as a Limited company. We are a strategy consultancy located in the Helsinki capital region.

We’ve been in business since 2007. The company name comes from the latin word Redigo, meaning both ‘I shape’ & ‘I renew’.

Stradigo combines the word strategy with Rdigo.

Strategic Planning

1.12 The Company Purpose

The Company Purpose — 1.12

Markus Westerlund

Strategy is my passion! I love to simplify complex work and finally squeeze the strategy on one single page, the Strategy 1Pager.

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Today I will talk about something really powerful, which will allow your company to take off. I’m talking about the purpose of the company.

First, let me ask you a question. Why does a company exist? What is the point of it? The answer, which you give spontaneously, centers on the core of your culture. There are many ways to answer this question. In my opinion, however, one answer can be better than the other.

Let me rephrase the question. Why do customers buy from us? Is the answer to this question the reason why our company exists?

Another question. Why do people work with us? Is this the point of our existence or is there a greater idea behind the company?

Why have investors invested their money into our business? Is the ultimate reason to earn money for the investors, who have risked their money? Some would say, of course! Others say that it is necessary, because without investments the company would not exist. Correct, people take out their invested capital by selling their ownership, if they think the returns on their investment are not sufficient. Likewise, the investors tend to prefer the company to increase in value over time.

It is also possible to think, that the company exists because all the stakeholders – the owners, the customers and the employees – believe and care deeply about what the company is trying to achieve.

A belief in good!

They can believe, for example, that the business idea can truly make the world into a better place, and create value for themselves, the customers, and the owners at the same time. This way the company also contributes tax revenue for the government, which naturally it likes very much. The government then does with the tax revenue what the bureaucrats and politicians think is necessary. Tax revenue expenditure is a controversial topic, let’s not talk about that beyond this point.

Everything I just mentioned will happen, you only need to make the right strategic choices.

The Purpose

We have a purpose! The purpose is above all other things in importance. If customers feel like they receive a lot from us, then we, the staff, enjoy our success. The customer buys more from us, and the owner of the company sees that money is flowing in like water flows into the faucet from the tap. The invested capital is generating returns!

I must add, that the investor can be a young family that has invested all of their extra little money they have, in us. The investor must, of course, receive something in return for the risk they have taken upon themselves. Charity is something else. It’s not rude to give people compensation as thanks, it’s the decent thing to do. They have taken on risk and invested their financial capital in us, who are working towards a worthy cause, and they are helping us by investing their money into our cause. So, let’s be grateful for this investment and pay the investors dividends as thanks when appropriate, and increase the value of our company for everyone’s sake.

Purpose into a context

I’ll explain how this can be presented as a concept. Everyone in business has encountered the words vision and mission. Both words are controversial and usually people understand them differently. Sometimes people get the word definitions mixed up. Many use the words without a clear shared understanding. This is why we launched a new way of thinking, by combining mission and vision together into a single word. This is when we started to use the word purpose.

I’m talking about the word Purpose. You lead a company with it.

I have shown these two opposite models to twenty customers during a strategy preparation process, and asked, which model they would like to use. The classic mission-vision model, or the simplified purpose concept? Everyone has agreed that The Company Purpose is the winning path forward for them. They have understood that the purpose concept is the winning path to a successful future for their business.

The above equation, that describes the situation, is absolutely solid in its clarity. Purpose equals mission + vision. Let’s dive into this equation more thoroughly.

The Sun model

Let me introduce you to the sun model. This metaphor is something I came up with on my own, but the idea itself comes from Cynthia Montgomery, a Harvard Business School professor, who has written the book Strategist. This book mentions something she calls System of Advantage. She uses a steering wheel for visualization, but I realized I can use my own sun symbol, which I have used for years in other situations. This created the Purpose concept. The purpose concept portrays how the company purpose shines onto our daily tasks and how it affects our everyday life.

Our tasks are located between the rays of the sun. The space in between are practically speaking various sectors. Each sector can be labeled as things like customers, products, services, sales, pricing, logistics, finance etc. Everything is there.

Purpose Concept - How our purpose shines on our operation

The company purpose has to be clearly visible inside the different tasks. Implementation can take place on different scales, which means some tasks have come further in adapting The Company Purpose. Some tasks haven’t come as far as the others.

If this is our Purpose now, what is like in the future?

In the future the sunbeams will shine stronger and reach further. Our “vision” is to complete the process in these different tasks inside the sectors. However, if the first sun image is the current situation (which often is referred to as the company mission) and the second picture (visible above) is the “vision”, aren’t we talking about the same thing? The Purpose doesn’t change, it only becomes stronger as the company moves into the future.

Case

Here is a case. I have crystallized this myself, so this isn’t an official slide. It is pretty good nevertheless. Look at the bullet points, and try to recognize what company it is. Start by reading the circle in the center: “Stylish furnishing for the many”. Then proceed to read the text inside the sectors. Customers have small living spaces and appreciate design. Prices match the wallets of many. A restaurant is at the front of the department store. Which company is this?

– IKEA, of course!

Cynthia Montgomery uses IKEA as a case example. IKEA has, as a business, created an unbeatable concept that has a long-term competitive advantage, a Sustainable Competitive Advantage. Any furniture company is able to copy any of these bullets, which I call gold grains. Any competitor can try to imitate any single golden grain, like the restaurant concept, but will the competitor be able to perfectly imitate every single golden grain that IKEA has? Practically speaking no, that’s impossible.

The whole IKEA concept is deeply embedded inside the company culture, that it’s impossible to imitate effectively.

Also, Ingvar Kamprad created a foundation, which owns IKEA. The fact that IKEA is owned by the foundation prohibits it from being sold to a third-party. IKEA can’t be bought. If you try to copy them, you are many steps behind by the time you think you are done. Meanwhile IKEA has improved its concept and gone further. What a way to create a competitive advantage by building it on golden grains!

Gold grains

Almost all customers I work with have said, that they are lost with the idea of differentiation. What makes us (the customer) different from the others? I answer by using this example of gold grains: If you’re in the forest looking for a lump of gold, you’ll never find it. The Californian gold rush ended ages ago. The big lumps of gold have already been collected. These days it is not a good idea to try to rely on one thing, one golden grain. Instead, put some effort into finding 30 grains of gold. When you combine them together you end up creating something unique. This will create a sustainable competitive advantage for you.

When you have a Purpose, you learn to adapt it to what you are doing and you create a sustainable competitive advantage from several golden grains. Pretty amazing when you think about it.

This means that you can build a whole strategy with The Company Purpose as a guideline. Once you have a clear purpose concept you can effectively choose what will be the most important focus areas in your strategy.

The Company Vision

When I ask Finnish companies what their visions are, I know their answer already in advance. How come? Everyone’s vision is always the same. They want to be No. 1. When I ask them: Isn’t the number 1 spot a position? They answer, yes. Then I ask them a follow-up question. Who gives you this status? They answer, the customers! Then I ask another follow-up question. What is the great thing you do, that allows you to earn the right to be No. 1? After that question the room usually become eerily quiet. The conclusion is that it is not clear what golden grains make up the company purpose.

I encourage you to build this system, because then you are able to overcome the challenge with differentiation. Recently I introduced this idea to a public company, and both the CEO and the board got really excited about the approach.

This is how the whole concept can be represented. This is good, in the sense, that it can be easily communicated both to the staff and to the customers. If we aren’t excited about our company’s Purpose, how on earth is the same purpose going to be exciting for the customer? Customers realistically only become excited about what we do if we ourselves are excited about what we do.

Dear friend, create the sun model for yourself! Ignite your strategy! That is how you achieve sustainable competitive advantage. Your staff will radiate with joy and excitement and the customers are thankful for it. Your customers will give you’re your well-deserved reward, which means deals and money that flows into your business. This is a win-win situation for everybody involved!

Ignite your strategy! Read more.🔥

Finding Us On Social Media

Stradigo

Stradigo is a brand owned by Rdigo Oy (Business-ID: 2120844-1).

Learn more from our Imprint.

Rdigo Oy is registered in Finland as a Limited company. We are a strategy consultancy located in the Helsinki capital region.

We’ve been in business since 2007. The company name comes from the latin word Redigo, meaning both ‘I shape’ & ‘I renew’.

Stradigo combines the word strategy with Rdigo.

Strategic Leadership

2.06 Multiplying Meeting Efficiency

Post author By Markus Westerlund
Post date March 22, 2021
4 Comments on 2.06 Multiplying Meeting Efficiency

Multiplying Meeting Efficiency — 2.06

Markus Westerlund

Strategy is my passion! I love to simplify complex work and finally squeeze the strategy on one single page, the Strategy 1Pager.

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Today I will reveal a secret. The secret is how a company can multiply its meeting efficiency! Over the years we have achieved this level of efficiency consistently. Let’s look at how it’s done.

Time spent in meetings

It’s pretty dramatic how much time we spend on meetings. Many have the opinion that they will spend a lot of time on meetings in the future as well. But, is there a way to be more efficient during meetings? Of course!

The magic of online meetings

We have, by necessity, discovered the magic of online meetings. We can share videos and talk to each other over the internet. The current situation with the pandemic required us to start using this technology properly in a serious manner. As a result, our societies have made a digital leap. I am truly grateful that this leap has taken place.

At Stradigo, we began holding online meetings back in 2016. Once we had discovered the efficiency benefits that online meetings gave us compared to face-to-face meetings, there was no going back to the traditional way of doing things. That is pretty exciting. Our customers agreed with this. Working online was much more efficient. An infinite stream of meetings very often bogs down employees, so efficiency is highly appreciated. 80-90% of my meetings have been held online already for several years.

So, what is the feature that makes online meetings preferable? A lot of people say that they prefer a physical meeting. Of course, it’s a more humane way to interact. However, if we look at this from a business perspective, the online meetings are far more efficient timewise. The strategy must also be present in everyday operation. If we desire human interaction, there will be plenty of time to socialize outside our meetings because our meetings are fast and efficient. Everybody wins.

Are we distant after all?

Distance is an interesting word. Distant from what? If you’re working from home, the meeting is nearby. It totally depends on which angle you are looking from. Are you looking at it from my point of view or an employee’s point of view? Attending a distance meeting is also about going to the workplace, isn’t it? It is the perspective that strongly defines whether it is distant or nearby.

The only thing that has started to bug me is people’s timidity to switch their videos on during meetings. I’ve heard all the excuses:

“My hair isn’t straight!”

“Technology isn’t working.”

“My kitchen is too messy!”

Ugh! It’s so easy to change one’s background nowadays. Think if we were as rude when arriving at physical meetings. It’s the same as giving everyone else eye masks so that no one can see you. Come on, show yourself!

Screen sharing

Another thing which everyone has learned, is sharing their screen. A PowerPoint is screenshared and everyone’s videos are placed on one side of the browser. There are several software available for this.

Microsoft Teams and Zoom, for instance, have spread quickly. For a long time we used Zoom almost exclusively, because back then it allowed us to have hundreds of participants join quickly into the workshops. These days both Zoom and Teams allows us to sort people into smaller breakout rooms for small-scale group work. In the future, we may have even better software to help us out, but for the time being Microsoft Teams and Zoom have worked great for us.

The fact that one person shares their screen and gives a presentation while others are commenting, is a massive digital leap. Now, I will, however, visualize what the problem is.

The fight for airtime

During a meeting, many people stay quiet because they do not want to compete for airtime. Because of this, many great insights and thoughts remain unheard. There could be many reasons. Some people are shy. Some don’t want to compete for attention with attention magnets, the very talkative people. Each company has extroverts and introverts, and everything in between. Even then, the best thoughts and input can reside with the quiet ones. If we only listen to the ones who are talkative, then the best ideas will not emerge. When everyone gets an equal chance to express themselves, that’s when the efficiency starts to increase.

Common writing surface

“The 5x Magic!” We can use a common digital writing surface, like a whiteboard! Some have claimed that group efficiency increases significantly there is a common writing surface, a common board, that everyone can edit at the same time. When everybody can be active participants at the same time the meeting efficiency will skyrocket. People can be active participants if they can contribute with editing and commenting no matter who happens to be talking at that specific time in the meeting. When this happens, the meeting experiences The 5x Magic!

Here you see the point in online meetings. I have held workshops with over 150 people, who I can divide into 50 breakout rooms at will. Everyone can contribute input at the same time.

I use Trello boards as the common writing surface.

A board for each meeting

Every meeting has its own separate board, on which the full meeting agenda is clearly visible. The agenda proceeds from left to right. If it is the first time I’m facilitating the meeting with the organization, I always begin the meeting with a briefing where I introduce them to the work process. It’s very simple to understand.

The board layout allows everyone to see and follow what is going on. This includes the introduction and the wrap-up of the meeting. I also collect pulse comments regularly during the meeting, which allows me to keep tabs on how everything is going. Pulse comments are a great way to gather feedback, because from them I learn how we did during the meeting and what should be done in the next steps of the process. Each column on the board represents a specific topic that needs to be covered during the meeting. We go through them one by one and we get input from the meeting participant.

At the end, everyone writes their thoughts about the meeting and what they learned from the experience. I have also built a course that teaches how to utilize this working method, and it is suitable for a larger group.

People should be activated in different ways during the meeting according to the topic that is being covered. Personal comments and tasks, including groupwork, can be assigned to the various participants. We can also encourage participants to brainstorm. We can identify the best ideas by asking everyone to give thumbs-up to the input people write on the board. By doing all of these things we can turn online meetings into an absolutely solid way of working together. And on top of this, at the end of the meeting we already have everything documented. In a regular meeting all the documentation work would have to be done separately after the meeting. Quite a time sink! Like… it used to go like this:

No more sticky notes!

The old way is to sit in a conference room and post sticky notes on the wall. The wall becomes colorful, but no-one is able to read the text from afar – let alone see the handwriting! When the meeting ends, someone wraps the brown paper into a roll and after two days you finally get the transcription of the sticky notes. What a waste! So slow.

With a digital writing board everything is taken care of all at once: The notes are immediately transcribed, they can be opened with a click and discussed about. Everyone is able to comment on the note simultaneously. And every comment is on the same platform automatically. This medium enables meeting efficiency to increase.

I often ask people to give one-word feedback to questions, e.g. “How was the strategy meeting today?” By using software we get hundreds of comments compressed into a word cloud, which makes it easy to see all the feedback. Pretty efficient!

Another benefit with holding online meetings is that we polute much less, since people don’t have to travel. No-one has to drive their car to a meeting. We save time by not commuting. Online meetings also tend to begin punctually, and people rarely come in late (at least in Finland).

Include everyone!

Here is an example of our strategy process and its digital boards. We include the staff at the beginning, middle, and end of the process. We hold workshops with volunteers in between these meetings, and every meeting has its own digital board. The agenda is visible, and everything is open for everyone to see. This is full transparency in practice. The boards can also be looked at later if somebody is absent from a meeting or a workshop or wants to make revisions.

If you learn this facilitation method, you can achieve great efficiency! Tasks are completed faster, and the quality of the output increases because the meeting efficiency gives time to iterate during the meeting. This way, we can get so much more done!

Efficient meetings increase productivity and probably result in more money coming into the business down the road. When the business makes money, it can pay out salaries to its employees.

Ignite your strategy by multiplying your meeting efficiency! Read more.🔥

Finding Us On Social Media

Stradigo

Stradigo is a brand owned by Rdigo Oy (Business-ID: 2120844-1).

Learn more from our Imprint.

Rdigo Oy is registered in Finland as a Limited company. We are a strategy consultancy located in the Helsinki capital region.

We’ve been in business since 2007. The company name comes from the latin word Redigo, meaning both ‘I shape’ & ‘I renew’.

Stradigo combines the word strategy with Rdigo.

Customer Strategy

5.02 Digital Sales for Dummies

Post author By Markus Westerlund
Post date March 22, 2021

Digital Sales for Dummies | 5.02

Markus Westerlund

Strategy is my passion! I love to simplify complex work and finally squeeze the strategy on one single page, the Strategy 1Pager.

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For ten years I have put an enormous amount of energy and time into understand digital sales, and what digitalization actually means in communication, marketing and sales. Also, I have invested a great amount of money. Luckily, some of the investments have borne fruit. I have frequently visited the United States and London and found the best people who are at the top of their league in digitalization.

It has been my great ambition to produce this text. Now I will tell you what the point of digital sales is. In my opinion it’s as big as the invention of the telephone. Phones have existed for years, but very few understood their power in the beginning. Let’s look at what digital sales is.

Hot leads

Point number one is that this thing called digital sales exists. Everyone wants hot leads in B2B marketing. Where do the leads come from?

From marketing, of course. The purpose of marketing is to bring hot leads to sales, and then it’s the sales’ job to close the deal.

In the old world the lead could come from trade fairs in the form of a business card. What if the lead isn’t hot, but lukewarm? Or cold? I have the business card, so who cares?

Nurturing

The question is: Can I nurture the customer with scalability? Think, if I could nurture a big group of customers… I’m talking about a massive group, even thousands of people! That would be intense!

This is what it’s all about in digital sales: We can nurture thousands of people on a weekly basis! It’s impossible to personally meet thousands of people, or even phone them all.

Nurture the customer

The above image, in my opinion, is the main point of this whole blog text: Is marketing giving leads? Nowadays the marketing unit has begun to market digitally a lot, but marketing very often measures its success in clicks. LinkedIn, for example, measures in clicks. But is it enough? No, it isn’t. We need a name!

Sales call their customers in order to get a sales meeting. The salesperson gives a spectacular presentation with all the PowerPoint-slides needed, and in the end the customer says:

“Really interesting, but not now. We have so much going on at the moment”.

Sounding familiar? What happens next? A long wait. 3-6 months later the salesperson meets the customer again. What does the customer say?

“Really interesting, but we have other things going on at the moment”.

This pattern goes on, and on, and on. What do we do in between the meetings? Most people wait aggressively by the phone, expecting a phone call or an email from the customer.

Give personal professional knowledge

What if WE sent messages to them? We have their business card; we have the right to send them messages and emails. Messages can be written by the salespeople or by a professional who was present at the meeting. Messages should contain personal professional knowledge, meaning we give the customer our best practices for free -experiences and cases, for example.

Text Messages can also be sent, marketing review reports, for example. The content has to contain substance, this means something that the customer wouldn’t come to think of on their own. A business has a lot of experience from its own field, and that’s the kind of information and know-how that the customer probably isn’t aware of, which makes it both insightful and valuable.

The customer needs to be nurtured with information and understanding, and we shouldn’t be guarding it jealously! This is called digital sales.

The second option is receiving an email address from the marketing department, without even meeting the person. We can, however, begin to nurture this customer personally through digital sales, just like I’m now telling you about all this. Yes, our idea behind these blogs is to give you sneak peeks and valuable insights. We not only want you to get something practical, that you can implement on your own, but to also get a clear idea if you would like to have us help you more in-depth. (Please don’t hesitate to get in touch.)

As I’m writing this blog, I’m at our vacation home in the Porvoo archipelago. We just arrived here with my wife. I have an office here as well, from which I work remotely quite often.

The thing about email addresses is so interesting. If I were a CEO of a big company or working in a company with tens of people, I would give the market one central measure:

“How many email addresses have you collected during this month?”

Clicks are only a waypoint. The culmination of the click is the email address. Did you get the address or not? Immediately when we have the address, we can launch a marketing automation sequence of multiple emails that contain substantial value for the lead. Not spam, valuable substance.

Digital sales is the same thing as the coming of the telephone. Before cell phones we, of course, knew how to sell. We went straight to the customer and knocked on their door and met them. Of course, letters were sent, and advertisements were posted in magazines. But then, cell phones came. Was the salesperson with a phone more efficient than the guy who ran around meeting everyone in person? OF COURSE, because they had the time to call many more people.

Now we can do digital sales! A massive amount of people can be reached with digital sales. Thousand times more than before with just a phone.

A personal professional relationship starts to build up. They start to know you.

First of all, I can create a personal, professional relationship with the customer. When I write this text for you to read, I need to speak to you as an individual. I’m not speaking in a large auditorium; I’m speaking to you as an individual and sharing my best tricks with you. This is how a bond is created between us. On the video it’s even more lively.

You begin to know me, and that is, of course, valuable. That’s when a customer might think:

¨Hey, that guy seems to know a lot and he’s telling me lots of useful things for free. In fact, I might start following this guy, because he seems so nice.”

I have many whom I like and follow quite intensely. Of course, all the time I don’t have the energy to read the messages I’ve received, but very often I look at them.

In 2007 I met Chris Cardell in London, and I have followed him ever since. He sends five messages a week, which I always don’t have the energy to read. I know, however, that in the beginning he gave me so much for free, that I was amazed and didn’t understand how that could’ve been profitable for the business. This is the catch. A person can sense this person genuinely wants to help, and not only sell.

There is always someone who needs help and will buy. But it’s wonderful if one can help businesses to succeed, even if they carried out a plan their own way without asking me for help. That’s the great mission. Of course, money needs to flow in. Someone always needs help in practice, but if someone can improve their business using the info I share, or some other presentation, it’s just wonderful!

There is no need of being scared of the competition. They can copy, but they also have their own beliefs and framework and their own way of doing things. It isn’t so easy to copy, and if someone copies me, I’ll be just around the corner the very next week developing something new, so at least in my business, the competition doesn’t matter because I move faster than the competitors can copy and implement my stuff. By they time they successfully develop and deploy my things, I have already made that same thing obsolete through new innovations.

Automate!

This way I can nurture thousands of people weekly. At the moment I have five thousand CEOs and management leaders on my mailing list, to whom I send a minute-long video every week. This type of short video is hard to do, because it can’t contain any extra word, because one minute is a very short time. I can easily speak 20 minutes or even 2-3 minutes, but compressing everything to a one minute speech is challenging. Every word needs to be examined, in order to make sure there is substance in the video.

I can share my message to thousands of people all at once. My customer’s salesman Jani had found 3500 contacts on LinkedIn, that could potentially be interested in the company’s services. He has met several customers face to face, altogether about 200. What does he do with the remaining 3300? Does he aggressively wait for someone to call? That’s when he realized he can approach them digitally and personally. There’s no way he would have the time to call all three thousand and meet them. Instead, he can nurture them. When the time is right and the customer realizes they need help, that’s when Jani might get a call or an email from a customer – without ever meeting them. Jani is already familiar to the customer.

Document experiences

I recently learned a new thing from my guru: Don’t create new content, document what you did”.

You don’t have to make up content! Just explain what you learned. That’s why I’m trying to become sensitive towards the moment I experience a Heureka-moment. Every week I get a feeling that “this was pretty interesting, I’ve learned something new”. I make a video about what I’ve learned, and send it off every Thursday.

I have been doing this for so long, that I suddenly have an archive of 300 videos! Producing a one-minute video no longer takes that long, because I’ve standardized the process for myself. Before, I was thinking a lot about how to get them done in my everyday life and what kind of technology and lighting I need. Here’s a tip for you: Talk with someone, who has figured things out and can help you get started. That way things go easy. Also, the best thing is that recording a video doesn’t have to cost you any money.

Goal of digital sales: The Meeting

The goal of B2B sales is the meeting. Not the fact that the deal would be done on the internet. These deals are usually very big. Nobody orders anything online with big sums of money, they invite you to a meeting. Then the traditional and physical offer negotiations begin. The goal in B2C is to secure the purchase. Same principles as in B2B apply, but closing is different online.

Traffic

Everyone wants traffic on their webpage. They want the email address. Traffic is wanted and it can either happen fast or slowly. Buying traffic is faster. In other words we advertise our pages to a large group on Facebook or LinkedIn. We get people to click and to download our “magnet”. The price is the email address. The feature of bought traffic is that it fades, people stop following after a while even though they had clicked on the link.

However, the traffic that comes from people who find our webpage on their own or through Google, is the traffic we own, because we have their email addresses. Even though Facebook, LinkedIn and everything would end, we have email. Facebook and LinkedIn can identify the people who have visited their pages. That’s when we can buy advertisements that are published directly to these people on those platforms, not outside of the platforms. However, we don’t get their email addresses if we just rely on advertising on the massive digital platform and ecosystems. We don’t own the traffic, which means we are in trouble if we are banned from using the advertising systems on these platforms.

The blue line in the image above is more valuable in the long run, but it is advisable to use both ways of traffic in the beginning.

Relevant content

Many think email is a disappearing medium and that nobody has time or bothers to read them. Yes, nobody reads a message that isn’t relevant to them! I say, however, that the receiver will most definitely read the message if it’s truly relevant to them.

A magnet has to exist, something that they want for themselves. It could be an e-book or a video series. A CTA (Call to Action) button is placed on the web page stating “Order this”, or “Download here”, for example. The email address is the what the user gives in exchange for the thing that they want.

It’s interesting when I asked a company management how many email addresses they have. They didn’t know! This in my opinion states that nobody has acknowledged that a new telephone has been invented. Otherwise they would’ve known the exact amount. This morning I had 7416 addresses, 5000 of which are in Finland and the remaining ones abroad. I can see these numbers directly in my information dashboard, and I keep track of them often — daily or weekly.

The List

This is an important point: Email addresses form my list. I have many many addresses on my list and together they are a huge asset, capital to our business. The list is important because it consists of current customers as well as prospective customers. If we have a quality list, it raises the valuation of our company.

The list is absolutely essential: You should collect email addresses, and in a way that the person is willing to give it. Then you grow the list systematically. This is the reason I would set the amount of new email addresses as a central KPI (Key Performance Indicator).

Of course people will leave the list when they no longer want to follow – and that’s ok. The more people leave, the better. That’s when the quality of the list grows because you don’t want to spam people who are not interested in the information that you are sending out. I, as well, clean out my list. I intend to send everyone that hasn’t followed or looked at my mails, a message. I will inform them that I will stop sending mails to them, but they can continue the subscription by clicking the button in the email.

Automatic nurturing

Once the message has been written, you don’t need to do it again. The computer takes care of the rest. Some people can think that automation makes the message impersonal. It isn’t impersonal, it’s me writing it! It’s just that the message comes with a delay. That’s how it was during the war when a letter came from the trenches. The letter had been written by a person, it just took time to arrive at its destination. The message has to be written in real time with a personal touch, but the delivery comes with a delay.

Digital sales allows us to take care of personal customer relationship development in a scalable fashion, in practice this means thousands of people. You are giving valuable information for free. The content has to be so solid, something you find difficult to decide if it is a smart choice to hand it out, because it something so valuable. You however are an expert, and you know how hard it is to actually implement your expertise. So even if the other party gets super high-value information, then they may not even have it in them to successfully implement that information. Those who truly value your expertise and value their own time, will realize that the most valuable choice for them is to contract you to help them out personally. Those who don’t value your input, come to the conclusion that they much rather do things by themselves. That is fine, because you will have more time to dedicate to the customers who actually value your input. Everybody wins.

“Wow, I’m getting so much for free, I wonder what I would get if I paid?”

Learn to collect email addresses and how to systematically build the list.

The goal of B2B sales is to get the meeting.

Ignite your strategy! Read more.🔥

Finding Us On Social Media

Stradigo

Stradigo is a brand owned by Rdigo Oy (Business-ID: 2120844-1).

Learn more from our Imprint.

Rdigo Oy is registered in Finland as a Limited company. We are a strategy consultancy located in the Helsinki capital region.

We’ve been in business since 2007. The company name comes from the latin word Redigo, meaning both ‘I shape’ & ‘I renew’.

Stradigo combines the word strategy with Rdigo.

Strategy Implementation

3.02 The Game Book of Actions

Post author By Markus Westerlund
Post date March 22, 2021
2 Comments on 3.02 The Game Book of Actions

The Game Book of Actions — 3.02

Markus Westerlund

Strategy is my passion! I love to simplify complex work and finally squeeze the strategy on one single page, the Strategy 1Pager.

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Many leaders have the problem that makes it difficult for them to renew their way of working, even though the goal is clear. How could one make everyone feel excited about creating new things while improving competitiveness? Creating an exciting game book of actions is the answer.

Let’s begin with our strategy model, in which three loops rotate while linked to one another. The first loop is where the strategy is directed: Everyone is involved and ideas are chosen, challenged and crystallized. When the strategic goals have been defined, the second loop’s mission is to break them down into subgoals. Prioritizing, resourcing and steering take place. The final loop is the everyday work, which is the theme of today’s blog.

Three loops

How do we get people to serve their customers with excitement throughout the entire customer lifecycle? The customer lifecycle is a journey as well.

What are the crucial matters, the new ways of working, that must be implemented? These matters can be made into Game Book. This metaphor has excited many. How can technology be used to make the ‘We Act’-loop rotate faster?

In actions, there are two pedals, the gas pedal and the brake pedal. If the brake pedal is pressed down, the car won’t budge. We must figure out a way to lift the pedal. I always pose a question:

What’s not working?

Of course, in every place there are a million things that don’t work. But what are the big things that aren’t working? If we merely try to step on the gas without letting go of the brake, it’s wasting energy.

The point is to understand what the WOW factor be for us, for me, my friends, and for our clients? This is the key to a fine process. Let’s engage everyone to think about the WOW factor. That’s when the brake pedal lifts, and the car is free to move. Not a very difficult idea, in theory.

What is the WOW factor for us?

The movement must be going from left to right. At Stradigo, we have facilitated tens of processes just like this, and as a concept it seems to be amazing.

The answer is to create a Playbook together! Invite people to join the process, even on a voluntary basis. Don’t create a thick Playbook, instead include only the crucial new procedures.

The Game Book of actions reforms procedures

The idea is to crystallize the new procedures. It’s advisable to do that according to the role. In an organization, people have multiple roles. What if people in certain roles were invited to identify the procedure that would become the WOW factor? WOW stands for Way-Of-Working.

The point is that the identification is done together. It’s not done in a conference room. Preferably, it’s done with volunteers. When people are given the freedom to think about the WOW, it’s easily identified!

In many places, I have been told that rules are not wanted. I often use soccer as a metaphor, because certain rules are needed. One must be familiar with the area in which the game is played. The goalkeeper can use their hands when catching the ball. A player can’t kick others in their legs.

If we do things together, the Game Book of actions inspires people to turn their operation towards a common direction by themselves. This direction is our Purpose, how we help our customers.

What motivates a role?

Let’s look at the roles. The customer is, of course, an obvious role. As is a salesperson, an expert, and a manager. A bunch of roles are picked, and then people are asked to volunteer in the process of choosing WOW factors for the roles. This makes everybody see the WOW factors in the roles.

The WOW catch

The work begins by looking at what’s slowing us down. The catch is to go around the obstacle. We task a group to find a way around the obstacle. The amount of creative ideas it’s possible to get is amazing!

Typical Game Book themes

The management’s job is to create focus, and they want to influence the process at this stage as well. The image above has typical approaches. The core can be the agile customer work. How could interacting and collaborating work better, and what about decision-making? How could we understand the customer more deeply? We ask people to innovate WOW factors within these themes.

The themes in the above image are typical, however, the management group can identify specific themes that they want to work for them.

Case: Roles have common joker cards

I invented the above card metaphor during a process inside of a big organization. The WOW factors were contemplated with chosen pioneering individuals. The management had given themes in which new things were innovated. These procedures were developed in a series of workshops. That’s when the idea of making the WOW factor into a playing card was born. It creates a card game!

Four cards were created in one workshop, when people were divided into four groups. Together, all the cards created a deck of cards. The name of the WOW factor was written on a card. We also gave the card a short description. The card contained ideas the individual carrying the card could implement without needing to ask a superior for permission. We also created special Joker cards, that could suit all the roles inside of the organization. Here is an example of such a Joker card:

“I cut meetings in half, both in time and number, without sacrificing our goals. I save people’s time by freeing them from long meetings. I only invite people relevant to the meetings. Using Teams, I collect everyone’s comments beforehand or after the meeting. We converse in Teams, not with email.”

Many cards were created, 52 to be exact! That’s the same amount of cards as in a regular deck of cards. The management was very excited about this. Take a moment to guess if the organization’s creative team was excited about the card deck? Yes. They ended up going out into the hallways, and the company neighborhood and they told everyone in the organization what had taken place.

The whole process went organically. In this situation the management didn’t start pushing it. Pioneer individuals were chosen, and they got to spread the excitement to others. It’s a very efficient and natural way! In other instances, we have done things more traditionally if the customers have wanted to set goals and to follow up. It depends on how this all feels as a process.

Create a Game Book of actions and ignite your strategy! Read more.🔥

Finding Us On Social Media

Stradigo

Stradigo is a brand owned by Rdigo Oy (Business-ID: 2120844-1).

Learn more from our Imprint.

Rdigo Oy is registered in Finland as a Limited company. We are a strategy consultancy located in the Helsinki capital region.

We’ve been in business since 2007. The company name comes from the latin word Redigo, meaning both ‘I shape’ & ‘I renew’.

Stradigo combines the word strategy with Rdigo.

The presence of strategy in daily work — 3.01

Markus Westerlund

Three loops

Summarizing everything on a single page

Strategy 1Pager

Meetings, meetings...

Operative tasks eat up the time

How you lead and follow up progress

The Purpose

Goals and targets

Safe stability is gone

You need continuous follow-up

Leadership inside the organization

Bottom up!

Today's point: Continuous Prioritization

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Stradigo

Kickstarting strategy implementation — 2.02

Markus Westerlund

Kickstarting strategy implementation: The Three Loops

PowerPoint vs. Digital board

See how the strategy implementation becomes reality

The Marmalade Phenomenon

The strategy ignites, and a successful journey begins! Read more.🔥

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Stradigo

Stradigo

A Successful Strategy is a Journey — 1.01

Markus Westerlund

Strategy is HOW

Strategy is a journey

The three loops of the strategy process

All three loops need to be linked together

The Staff Briefing

Some points why to involve everyone in the strategy process

How the workshops look like in practice

Invite everyone to take part in the strategy process to save money

Challenging beliefs and myths

Prioritize

Act

The Big Picture - The Full Strategy Process

Automatic Reporting

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Finding Us On Social Media

Stradigo

Customer Segmentation — 5.03

Markus Westerlund

Why segment customers?

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Finding Us On Social Media

Stradigo

Agile Hybrid Organization | 2.05

Markus Westerlund

Hierarchichal organization

Hierarchy is slow in action

Less profitable

Expensive to upkeep

Demotivating

Clear

Good in crisis

Measure of success

Teams discuss and decide

Visions of organization

Agile hybrid organization

Individuals have several roles

Towards the sun by helping customers

Ground rules

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Stradigo

Assumptions of the Strategy — 1.13

Markus Westerlund

Strategy is built on top of our current assumptions

Agile strategy

Assumptions define the quality of strategy

Challenge

Challenge the mantras!

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