Strategic Analysis Best Practice 7 – Diverse Models
Solutions addressing today’s multifaceted business challenges and opportunities can be extremely difficult to recognize; the ever increasing pace of change within the business environment further complicating this problem. In order to successfully deal with this challenge, decision-makers need the support of people and tools to help them distill large quantities of data, recognize important business trends, discount temporary fads, and translate their findings into meaningful organizational activities. Because no one analysis perspective will adequately account for all of the important nuances associated with a complex problem, multidiscipline teams and diverse tools should be employed to establish a complete picture organizational performance and environmental conditions. Use of a diverse set of models during the strategic analysis process helps create this needed picture.*[wcm_restrict plans=”40694, 25542, 25653″]
As discussed in Strategic Analysis Best Practice 5 – The Use of Models, organizational leaders benefit significantly by using models to help them sift through the mountains of available data and to recognize the meaningful patterns and relationships that yield the information needed to make timely decisions. Yet as is the case with all measuring instruments, an individual model can only evaluate one or a few characteristics of organizational performance or environmental conditions. Therefore, multiple models, each targeted at a different aspect of performance, should be used to paint a complete performance picture from which decision-makers gain the insight and understanding needed to make quality decisions.
Final Thought…
Use of diverse models to analyze organizational performance and environmental conditions is akin to using an assortment of organizational performance measures and multidiscipline teams. This practice provides varying perspectives on the same situation, leveraging a broader data, knowledge, and experience base, and subsequently more fully characterizing existing circumstances and future opportunities which in-turn helps decision-makers identify the appropriate course of action.
* The use of a multidiscipline team in support of analysis processes is described in Strategic Analysis Best Practice 6 – Multidiscipline Teams.[/wcm_restrict][wcm_nonmember plans=”40694, 25542, 25653″]
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Business Communications – Common Language
Clarity of communication is a critical component of all business transactions. Without understanding, we are prone to execute instructions in a manner different than that desired. So how then, can we as communicators ensure our message is clear and understood by those receiving it?[wcm_restrict plans=”49070, 25542, 25653″]
For communications to be clear, they must possess several key qualities, one of which is common language. Common language is more than a specific language; it also includes a common frame of reference. People from different locations often use words and phrases the meaning of which is not broadly understood. And even among individuals sharing a like understanding of this slang, an off-normal word association can inhibit understanding.
One of the best illustrations of two people speaking one language, English, but not understanding each other because of a lack of common reference is Abbot and Costello’s “Who’s On First?” routine first performed in the early 1930’s.
Video 1: Abbott and Costello’s “Who’s On First?” from the 1945 film The Naughty Nineties.
Recognizing Common Language Challenges
Preventing communication misunderstandings will eliminate the often costly need for rework and renegotiation in addition to the damage done to relationships. Several activities that help identify when a common language challenge is likely to exist:
- Identifying the language and fluency level of audience members
- Learning the regional living differences of audience members
- Listening for requests for clarification or restatement
- Looking for the appearance of inquisitive or confused facial expressions
- Checking for alignment between audience member responses and information communicated
Minimizing Common Language Challenges
In addition to recognizing common language challenges, communicators can proactively minimize the occurrence of these misunderstandings by:
- Communicating in the language of the audience or employ an interpreter to do so
- Eliminating the use of colloquialisms from communications
- Checking for understanding of key messages and action requests
- Using visuals to augment verbal communications, particularly for complex or abstract concepts
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About the Author
Karen K. Juliano is StrategyDriven‘s Editor-in-Chief and Director of Communications and Marketing. Prior to joining the StrategyDriven team, she helped produce weekly programming for a Public Access Television station and served as a production assistant in the public affairs office at United States Naval Base, Philadelphia. To read Karen’s complete biography, click here.
StrategyDriven Podcast Episode 16 – Strategic Analysis Multidiscipline Teams
StrategyDriven Podcasts focus on the tools and techniques executives and managers can use to improve their organization’s alignment and accountability to ultimately achieve superior results. These podcasts elaborate on the best practice and warning flag articles on the StrategyDriven website.
Episode 16 – Strategic Analysis Multidiscipline Teams elaborates on Strategic Analysis Best Practice 6 – Multidiscipline Teams. This discussion:
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- defines what a multidiscipline team is
- identifies why multidiscipline teams are needed to support strategic analysis
- lists the steps needed to form a multidiscipline team that collectively possesses the knowledge and skills to effectively perform a strategic analysis
[powerpress]
Strategic Analysis Best Practice 6 – Multidiscipline Teams
Today’s businesses operate in complex, multidimensional environments and often execute highly dynamic and interrelated processes. Evaluating these circumstances collectively requires a breadth and depth of knowledge not likely to be possessed by a single individual. In order to apply the range of knowledge and experience necessary to perform a complete strategic analysis subsequently requires the use of a multidiscipline team.
Multidiscipline teams help ensure the full range of needed knowledge and experience resources are brought to bear when evaluating, in aggregate, the interrelationships and interactions of the complex business environment with the execution of the organization’s programs, processes, and procedures. Having enough knowledge and experience resources occurs when the strategic analysis team includes individuals that together possess the background necessary to recognize significant beneficial and adverse performance drivers given the business’s operating situation. Unlike a focused self assessment, the broad range of business environments and operations covered by a strategic analysis typically necessitates that all functional disciplines be represented.
Additional Information
Additional information regarding the performance of strategic analysis can be found in the strategic planning whitepaper, Analysis.
Leadership Inspirations – The Permanence of Success and Failure
“Success is never permanent, and failure is never final.”
Mike Ditka
NFL Player and Head Coach and one of only two men to have won the Super Bowl as both a player and a head coach