“Strategy is about trade-offs; it’s about deliberately choosing to be different.”
– Michael Porter (b. 1947), prolific author and decorated professor at Harvard Business School
“…It’s about deliberately choosing to be different.”
Deliberately.
Choosing.
Being different. It’s difficult to make a difference unless we’re willing and committed to being different…
Strategy is talked about so often that it’s easy for us to think, “We got this!” Except that not too many of us do. I’m winging it here (shocking, right?!), but I’ll bet that 80% of the companies I’ve been exposed to think structure first, and then try to wedge strategies in to the structure, based on tenure or whose feelings might get hurt. Those structure-first companies will get lapped by companies willing to deliberately choose to be different.
That’s one reason why strategy should determine structure. If that’s uncomfortable to get our arms around, try it this way: Structure must support strategy. Leadership teams should relentlessly ask, “Does our structure support our strategy?”
Deliberately choosing to be different requires trade-offs. One of the most uncomfortable places those trade-offs will occur is in discussions around structure. Who reports to whom, head-count, functional fire hydrants upon which to “mark territories,” those are all conversations that likely tell us that we have the cart-before-the-horse, the emPHASis on the wrong sylLABle.
What are we trying to accomplish? How will we be different, truly different? Those are questions asked by strategically-focused companies — the kind that will make a difference.
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