One of the things I like to say is that you have to qualify for strategy.
Small companies usually die of incompetent operations, not lack of strategy, so you don’t get the luxury of thinking about strategy if you can’t execute.
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Today someone pointed out to me that if you say “oh, that guy is terrible at strategy”, this is actually a compliment in disguise — it means their operations are decent enough that they get to qualify for strategy.
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I realise that Hamilton Helmer (he of 7 Powers fame) says something like ‘operational excellence is table stakes’. I like that a lot.
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A concrete example of this is “yes, it’s *absolutely* a good use of our time to have a three hour long discussion about changing market dynamics every month, when every SDR we hire quits on us after 6 months.”
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Again, not saying strategy isn’t important. Just that it doesn’t matter as much until you reach some minimum bar of operational excellence.
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Wouldn’t this lead to actions being carried out very mechanically, potentially leading to poor outcomes too? For example devs who just do what they are told without giving thought to the outcomes we are trying to achieve
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Nope — you can have intuitive mastery of internal execution and little ability to read the market/competitive landscape. This sounds odd in theory, but is surprisingly common amongst SMEs in practice.
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Agree, with one nit - Isn't a fundamental aspect of strategy deciding what *not* to do. Meaning that strategy dictates which customers & features you focus on (your niche).
Don't you think that doing this incorrectly kills a lot of small companies, regardless of execution?
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Aye, though I'm not sure about 'kills a LOT of small companies'.
For a more nuanced understanding, take a look at this list of things that are table stakes: permanentequity.com/writings/table
(And think about the many, many ways things can go wrong).
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