Dr. Marc Sniukas

19/01/2024

18/01/2024

HOW TO DESIGN YOUR PERSONAL STRATEGY

I’m often asked whether strategy applies to small businesses.

Of course, it does.

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It even applies to your personal life.

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Think of it like this.

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We all have ambitions, don’t we?

Whether in your personal life, your career, your family…

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And we always face challenges when it comes to reaching these ambitions.

A key challenge in our lives is time.

There never seems to be enough to do everything we want.

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Hence, we need a strategy that helps us prioritize our time and the activities we invest our time in.

Below is Roger Martin’s approach to applying his Playing to Win Strategy Cascade to our personal lives.

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As a solopreneur/solo-consultant I do this regularly.

And I apply a holistic approach, considering my business, personal needs, and family life.

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In 2024, I will grow my business. Hence, I spend more time on marketing and sales activities.

Another ambition is to improve my health. Hence, I spend more time on my diet, mind, and fitness.

I build capabilities in these areas by studying these topics and following some people here on LinkedIn.

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When it comes to my Management System, I have organized my ToDoIst and Apple Notes into categories of activities, which align with the above.

1️⃣ Client Work

2️⃣ Content/Writing

3️⃣ Lead Generation

4️⃣ Learning

5️⃣ Health

That way, I’m constantly reminded of my priorities.

If a task or idea doesn’t fit into these buckets, I think twice about whether I want to do it.

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On top of that, my ideal week has time blocks for each of these activities.

I don’t manage to stick to it every day or week.

But seeing it in front of me and checking my actual week against my ideal week helps me make adjustments and see whether I’m on track and living my strategy or not.

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How do you design your personal strategy?



—
I help CEOs craft a clear, actionable, no-BS strategy. So you can lead with unparalleled clarity + confidence.
👋 Follow me for tips on designing & executing winning strategies.

17/01/2024

HOW TO MAKE SMARTER STRATEGY

Although study after study says that the majority of leaders think...

❌ Their company has NO well-defined strategy

❌ Their strategy will NOT lead to success

❌ Their strategy is NOT shaping the industry

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Most organizations continue to hold on to the same old-school approaches to strategy.

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What did Einstein say again?

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"Insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results."

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If you want different results...

👉 Change the way you think about strategy!

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Old-school strategy is dead ☠️

Here are the new rules of smarter strategy 👇



—
I help CEOs craft a clear, actionable, no-BS strategy. So you can lead with unparalleled clarity + confidence.
👋 Follow me for tips on designing & executing winning strategies.

16/01/2024

HOW TO UNDERSTAND MICHAEL PORTER

Thanks to Paul Lewis for this wonderful summary of ‘Understanding Michael Porter’ by Joan Magretta.

I think it will clarify many of the misconceptions about Porter’s view on strategy.

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If competition didn’t exist, there’d be no need for strategy.
Strategy is the antidote to competition.

Two ways of gaining a competitive advantage:

* do different things

* do things differently

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Competing to be the best is a destructive, zero-sum game.
Competing on price is the business equivalent of mutually assured destruction.

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Strategic competition = choosing a different path, competing to be unique.
Uniqueness is the essence of competitive advantage.
Run a different race from your rivals.

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A good strategy is like a shelter in a storm.

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Competitive advantage means you operate at a lower cost, command a premium price, or both.

To sustain a premium price, you have to offer something that is unique and valuable.

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Improving operational effectiveness does not provide a robust competitive advantage.

‘Best practice’ advantages are rarely sustainable.

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Every good strategy has:

* a distinctive value proposition

* a tailored value chain

* trade-offs different from rivals

* interdependent fit across the value chain

* continuity over time

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Find a unique way to serve your chosen segment profitably.

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Effective strategy requires:

* a set of choices that nobody else has made

* trade-offs throughout the value chain, eg, Ikea.

* either/or choices – straddling is usually a mistake.

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A stable value proposition can still deliver huge innovation.

Lots of things in how Walmart works have changed – it’s value proposition hasn’t.

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When you substitute flexibility for strategy, your organisation doen’t stand for anything. Flexibility without strategy will guarantee mediocrity.

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An effective strategy is dynamic. It’s a path, not a fixed point.

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Sticking with a strategy allows it to emerge and improve.
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Continuity of direction makes effective change more likely.
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Strategy guards against fads.

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Ten practical implications:

* Vying to be the best is intuitive but self-destructive.

* Competition is about profits, not market share.

* Competitive advantage is not about beating rivals but creating unique value for customers.

* A strategic value proposition requires a specifically tailored value chain to deliver it.

* A good strategy deliberately makes some customers unhappy.

* Making trade-offs is the linchpin that makes competitive advantage possible and sustainable.

* Without good ex*****on even the most brilliant strategy won’t deliver superior performance.

* Good strategies depend on many choices and the connections among them.

* Too much change can be just as disastrous for strategy as too little.

* Strategy doesn’t require heroic predictions about the future – it does require a point of view.



—
I help CEOs craft a clear, actionable, no-BS strategy. So you can lead with unparalleled clarity + confidence.
👋 Follow me for tips on designing & executing winning strategies.

14/01/2024

Coldplay has released a sustainability report.

Yes, you read that right…

A music band has released a sustainability report.

While a lot of businesses talk about wanting sustainability as part of their strategy, Coldplay was very serious about it...

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„When we first announced the Music Of The Spheres Tour, we hoped to make it as environmentally beneficial as possible and reduce our direct carbon emissions (from show production, freight, band and crew travel) by 50%.“

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During the first 12 months of the tour, they reduced CO2 emissions by 47% compared to their previous tour on a show-by-show basis.

They aim at further reductions during the 2nd year of the tour.

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"This is a good start – and something that our incredible crew should be very proud of – but clearly there’s still room for improvement.

Now that we’re into the second year of the tour, we’ve started to run the entire show (audio, lights, lasers etc) from an electric battery system that allows us to use 100% renewable energy as efficiently as possible. We have been using electric vehicles and alternative fuels wherever we can, as well as reducing waste and plastic usage to a minimum."

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HIGHLIGHTS:

🌿 47% reduction in direct CO2e emissions compared to our previous tour (2016-17), on a show-by-show basis

🌳 5 million trees planted that will be supported to maturity via One Tree Planted - one for each concert goer. 5,000 hectares of land restored across 17 countries and 21 planting projects

🌎 1 solar-powered River Interceptor deployed in March 2021 in the Klang River, Malaysia via The Ocean Cleanup. 158 tonnes of waste and 13 tonnes of ocean-bound plastic removed since start of tour

🪴 86% average return rate of the reusable, plant-based LED wristbands

⚡️ 15kWh average power per show generated via in-venue solar installations, kinetic dance floors and power bikes - enough to power the C-stage performance each night and provide the crew with phone, laptop and tool-charging stations

💦 95% of shows with free water refill stations for fans

✈️ 553 tCO2e saved by purchasing Sustainable Aviation Fuel (SAF) for flights

🦠 66% of all tour waste diverted from landfill

🌭 3,770 meals + 73 kg of toiletries donated from tour catering to the unhoused and unsheltered

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How serious is your business about sustainability?



—
I help CEOs craft a clear, actionable, no-BS strategy. So you can lead with unparalleled clarity + confidence.
👋 Follow me for tips on designing & executing winning strategies.

12/01/2024

HOW TO GROW IN 2024 (and beyond)

According to McKinsey research, a typical company grew at 2.8% during the ten years preceding COVID.

And only 1 in 8 recorded growth rates of more than 10% per year.

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How did they do it?

Here are the Ten Rules of Value-Creating Growth:

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1️⃣ Put competitive advantage first. Start with a winning, scalable business model.

2️⃣ Make the trend your friend. Prioritize profitable, fast-growing markets.

3️⃣ Don’t be a laggard. It’s not enough to go with the flow—you need to outgrow your peers.

4️⃣ Turbocharge your core. Focus on growth in your core industry—you can’t win without it.

5️⃣ Look beyond the core. Nurture growth in adjacent business areas.

6️⃣ Grow where you know. Focus on growing where you have an ownership advantage.

7️⃣ Be a local hero. Commit to winning on the home front.

8️⃣ Go global if you can beat local. Expand internationally if you have a transferable advantage.

9️⃣ Acquire programmatically. Combine healthy organic growth with serial acquisitions.

🔟 It’s OK to shrink to grow. Ruthlessly prune your portfolio if you need to.

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The more rules you master to create growth for your organization, the better.

Only 8% of companies master 6 or more.

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At the foundation of these 10 rules is a solid strategy.

Does your strategy address any of these 10 rules?



—
I help CEOs craft a clear, actionable, no-BS strategy. So you can lead with unparalleled clarity + confidence.
👋 Follow me for tips on designing & executing winning strategies.

11/01/2024

Is your strategy really a strategy?

We often see strategy statements that don’t qualify as such.

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Peter Compo has developed this wonderfully simple test.

Even one yes means the statement is likely disqualified as a strategy!

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1️⃣ Is the OPPOSITE absurd? → At best, an aspiration, but very possibly a cliché or truism

2️⃣ Does it include NUMBERS? → A goal or plan

3️⃣ Does it DUPLICATE the parent? → Truism that adds no information

4️⃣ Does it EXCLUDE anything or anyone? → Not unified

5️⃣ Is it a LIST? → Likely not unified, missing real-time guidance, or lacking trade-offs

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Remember, the disqualifiers don’t tell you if you have a good strategy; they tell you if you have a strategy at all!

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Here’s an example:

We execute on our strategy to deliver long-term, profitable growth by improving underwriting capabilities, mitigating risk and volatility by repositioning reinsurance structures and risk limits, adding world-class talent and utilizing capital opportunistically to reinvest in the business.

👉 TEST THE STRATEGY

1️⃣ Opposite? Fail. The words improving, mitigating, and world-class all fail; none gives information.

2️⃣ Numbers? Pass.

3️⃣ Duplicate? Pass, but fail if the board has made this a constraint on the CEO.

4️⃣ Excluded? While the broadness of the statement would seem to apply to the entire business, without more knowledge of the business it is hard to know if any aspect of the company is excluded.

5️⃣ List? Fail.



—
I help CEOs craft a clear, actionable, no-BS strategy. So you can lead with unparalleled clarity + confidence.
👋 Follow me for tips on designing & executing winning strategies.

10/01/2024

Corporate-level strategy is about answering the question:
Which industries + businesses should we be active in?

Business-level strategy is about answering the question:
How do we compete in these businesses?

Roger Martin‘s original PtW Cascade focuses on the business level, with

Where to Play: Customers, products, activities, channels

How to Win: Differentiation, low cost.

When using the PtW Cascade for Corporate strategy, I tweak it to focus on the key questions of corporate strategy.



—
I help CEOs craft a clear, actionable, no-BS strategy. So you can lead with unparalleled clarity + confidence.
👋 Follow me for tips on designing & executing winning strategies.

09/01/2024

Strategy is a bet.

You can't be sure it will work.

You can analyze all the data you want...

but...

No data in the world will give you 100% certainty.

To increase the odds of your strategy being successful...

You need to have a Theory.

Where do you believe the market is going?

What do you believe competitors will be doing?

What do you believe will make you successful?

What's your strategy hypothesis?



—
I help CEOs craft a clear, actionable, no-BS strategy. So you can lead with unparalleled clarity + confidence.
👋 Follow me for tips on designing & executing winning strategies.

07/01/2024

Strategic Leadership.

Do you want to become a better strategic leader?

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Strategic Leadership is about:

1. Setting direction
2. Guiding people, teams, and the organization
3. Transforming the conditions so that people and teams can perform

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1️⃣ Setting direction is about…

→ MAKING BETTER STRATEGY STRATEGY
→ PUTTING INNOVATION BACK INTO STRATEGY

2️⃣ Guiding people, teams, and the organization is about…

→ BUILDING HIGH-PERFORMANCE TEAMS
→ NEW WAYS OF LEADING
→ NEW WAYS OF WORKING

3️⃣ Transforming conditions is about…

→ ORG TRANSFORMATION
→ ORG DESIGN
→ CHANGE MANAGEMENT
→ CULTURE
→ NEW WAYS OF ORGANIZING

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At the foundation of being an excellent strategic leader is the ability to

4️⃣ Lead oneself

→ HEALTH
→ MINDSET
→ PERSONAL PRODUCTIVITY

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👉 Follow me for actionable, solid, no-BS content on these topics in 2024.

Become a Better Strategic Leader.



—
I help CEOs craft a clear, actionable, no-BS strategy. So you can lead with unparalleled clarity + confidence.
👋 Follow me for tips on designing & executing winning strategies.