Strategy's Where You Find It

I’m breaking my promise on no holiday posts only because there’s a great holiday-related strategic truth to share: strategy shouldn’t be unnecessarily complicated or obscure. Great strategy is understandable and clearly communicates what makes sense to do and to not do.

On Christmas Eve afternoon, we went to visit my mom’s aunt who had baked an apricot kuchen (a German coffee cake) that’s unbelievably wonderful and one of my favorite desserts. Not only does she make kuchen, she also is known for her bierocks and cinnamon rolls.

She told us that a number of people had asked her to start baking some nut breads, but she wasn’t interested in doing it. The reason? The kuchen, bierocks, and cinnamon rolls were all made from the same dough. By sticking to a single dough, she can be very efficient and have an extremely high certainty that everything she bakes will be good. What brilliant strategic focus!

So while my Aunt Ollie probably wouldn’t think of herself as strategic, she demonstrates an important lesson – your strategy should align your primary activities and carrying it out should help you to be more efficient and effective than if you weren’t following the strategy. And if the focused strategist is an incredible baker…so much the better! Have a Happy New Year!