First, the bane …

In the Lord of the Rings story, the fellowship travels great distances and through many adventures trying to accomplish their mission. One of my favorite parts of the story is when they must travel through Moria, an underground dwarve colony and site of their great mines. Led by Durin, the dwarves settled “under the mountain” and began to build, explore and mine the riches that they found there. What they did not know (until it was too late) was the danger that dwelt in the depths. A Balrog. Durin’s Bane. The unspeakable terror that threatened them all. And it was coming for them.

A little dramatic, I suppose, but it is worth recognizing similar banes that befall the competitive intelligence community. That is, the “terrors” that hold the potential to derail all that we know to be true and worthwhile and to make our mission difficult, if not impossible. It is not hard to identify these things. It is only hard for us, collectively, to overcome them.

Here are the five banes that I think are most troublesome.

1. Missing the deep connection with senior management. I regularly run surveys of competitive intelligence professionals. (Take my latest survey here.) In most of the surveys I ask a variant of the question, “how well do you work with or get support from senior management?” This question usually gets the most negative responses (i.e., this is a big problem). Anecdotally, I hear all the time that making connections (e.g., relationships, meaningful dialogs, clear commissions) with sponsors is extraordinarily difficult for many. Is it any wonder that competitive intelligence projects often fail when these connections are missing?
2. Missing competency measures for professionals. Quick question – “Who is the best competitive intelligence professional that you know (excepting yourself, of course)?” Did a name come to mind? Here is a meta-question. How would know who is the best? We do not hand out merit badges, hold competitions or certify outcomes. So, how do you or I know who is the best, how we relate to that standard and if we are improving? The bottom line is that it is hard for us to know any of those things using objective measures. As a result, we all live in the mushy world of marketing perceptions. Why is that trouble? See my first point.
3. Missing meaningful measures of success. After the missing link with senior management, the next most problematic area for many competitive intelligence professionals is the ineffective representation of value for competitive intelligence. While the nirvana might be to be able to truthfully say something like, “as a result of our CI work, revenues and profits increased by x% and costs decreased by y%,” sadly many CI projects end with little linkage between effort and outcomes. This, of course, is a long-term prescription for extinction of the function. A short-term ROI perspective, cleanly and convincingly expressed, drives senior management. When we muddle through, or worse, avoid a CI value description, it signals to management that CI is an optional function. When cost reductions are important, they eliminate optional functions.
4. Missing shared problem-solving vehicles. Notwithstanding some of the fine CI communities that exist, there seems to be little shared problem-solving within the community. Ascribe that to busyness, diverging agendas, confidentiality requirements or disinterest – the net effect is that that many practitioners exist on virtual islands. That means that each person is left to his or her own problem-solving patterns and solutions. This is great for self-reliance development but not so good for advancing a discipline.  The cumulative impact is that we grow much slower as a community, develop fewer iconic figures recognizable outside the narrow CI population and poorly link research to practical application. (My modest attempt to help with this problem is my new website for Competitive Intelligence Case studies at www.cicases.com.)
5. Missing clear definition of CI from others. This recurring problem has significant ramifications. The problem is not so much that two CI professionals differ over the nuances in a competitive intelligence definition. No, the problem is how others outside of CI define competitive intelligence. The bottom line is that they do not do a good job and we, inside the industry, suffer because of that. The definitions range from those that are plainly wrong (“it’s corporate espionage”), subtly misleading (“it’s no different from market research”) to unhelpfully narrow (“it’s all about competitors” ). Notice how much time we spend responding to or correcting such misguided opinions and then imagine if we could spent similar energy advancing our skills or collaboration instead. The lack of an externally recognized definition saps our time and energy from more productive pursuits.

There are problems to be sure. But, what about competitive intelligence boons?

Here are three positive truths to remember.

1. Competitive intelligence has always been important and always will be. From time immemorial, whenever business competition occurred, it has been helpful to know more about competitors, the environment and the ways to win. People intuitively know this to be true and examples abound where such knowledge resulted in advantages.
2. With clearly expressed value, it is not difficult to “sell” competitive intelligence. Here we can admit that many CI professionals do not sell well. We lead with techniques, software tools and search gimmicks that seem valuable (to us) but are not valuable to senior management. However, with practice and some translation skills, we can adjust our presentation to the management (i.e., customer) perspective. That works.
3. Collaboration opportunities are increasing. This is a function of two large things. First, the tools and mechanisms available through the Internet make it easy to connect to professionals around the world. Second, there is (IMHO) an increasing sense that we need each other to represent better our specialty and to advance a common agenda of increased value. There is nothing like a recession to spur people to action.

The Balrog doomed Durin. It was his bane. Later, if you know the story, Gandalf overcame the Balrog after a great struggle. The good triumphed over the evil.

We can certainly rectify personally and collectively the banes of competitive intelligence. In part, we do this by remembering all that is right about the profession and its aims.

What do you think?

I would be pretty happy if I could say that all of my problems were due to those that garble the definition of competitive intelligence.  If customers would just understand what I do better, then my business would boom, my clients would prosper and the long awaited vacation home in the Colorado mountains would be a reality!

Fairness compels me to admit, however, that poor definitions are only the beginning of the issues faced by me and, perhaps, by others that practice competitive intelligence.

Another significant problem has to do with marketing competitive intelligence. (I have previously written about “The Failure of Competitive Intelligence Marketing.”) Undoubtedly, there are exceptions but my sense is that it is common for CI professionals to face difficulties in marketing their services. Why? One reason might be that previous successes are problematic to share. If I deliver outstanding insight to a client, it is reasonable for them to want exclusive access to that insight. Thus, I cannot ethically share this story to help me get my next client. Another reason might be that it is often hard to capture discrete, numerical benefits directly attributed to competitive intelligence. Testimonials help, of course, but the holy grail of benefiting a company’s bottom line is often elusive.

Finally, there is the issue of increasing personal value over time. How does a competitive intelligence professional get better at his or her job? Admittedly, there is no substitute for numerous client engagements to support on-the-job learning. Still, the absence of a well-established competency framework (though some are in work) to guide or certify professional development in the industry is a clear community weakness. In absence of a framework that has a commercial meaning (i.e., customers value the framework and use it to make buying decisions), how does a CI professional manage their own skill development? There is no lack of opportunities but how do you decide what to do. And, after taking advantage of some of those opportunities, how do you translate the improved skills into increased value for customers?

These questions are a puzzle for me and are the subject of a short survey that I am doing in March. The survey has five questions. It will take about two minutes to complete.

Would you give me your responses? Click here to take the survey. I will post results on my website and blog by March 31^st. Thank you.

Here are the survey questions.

1. How well do you think that your CI customers or clients understand the definition and value of competitive intelligence?
2. Which statement best describes your success in describing competitive intelligence to prospective customers or clients?
3. How well does your organization assemble and market competitive intelligence success stories?
4. Which of the following development steps do you regularly take to improve your competitive intelligence skills?
5. Which skills, if substantially improved, would have the greatest impact on your competitive intelligence success? I would like to be better at …

Consultants commonly face the challenge of doing a quick analysis of a new organization. We have to be ready with the right set of questions to discern what is happening and what might improve the outcomes. I suppose that this is true inside organizations when competitive intelligence is applied to a new problem or within a new business.

If you are lucky, you will have sufficient time to analyze before prescribing action. Whether it is a short time or a long time, the time is still finite. Therefore, the right focus is important.

All of this got me to thinking about what I would asked if I were limited to five questions. That is, what five questions would give me the best possible picture of the competitive intelligence status of a company and some idea of what might improve the competitive intelligence value?

Here are my five questions that I would address to senior leaders of the company.

1. What are your strategies?
2. What results are you getting from those strategies?
3. What factors do you think most affect your strategies?
4. What are the established givens and outstanding puzzles for you in the competitive environment?
5. What are you already doing to understand, track and respond to competitive issues?

What would be your set of five questions?

There were ways to get around all of this noise.

• You could take advantage of the times that the factory shut down. That removed all of the background noise. Unfortunately (if your goal was talking instead of production), this happened very infrequently.
• If you knew exactly who to talk to, you could move close to them and speak loudly. If you were the listener, the right strategy was to focus on the speaker’s words while ignoring the barrage of other sounds.
• If you wanted to “overhear” something, then the only recourse was to become involved in the conversation. That, of course, depended on the acquiescence of the other participants. Thus, you were unlikely to hear much of value accidently.

Conversely, some approaches would only make the problem worse.

• You would not want a goal of hearing everything that was being said in the factory. That would simply complicate the problem of separating an important conversation from the background machine noise. Lack of focus was a sure way to hear nothing of value.
• You would never want to amplify the sounds in the factory. Though this might increase the volume of the speaker’s voice, it would also increase the sounds from the machinery.
• You would not want to encourage people to whisper. Obviously, this made it harder to hear since the level of noise would overwhelm the conversation

Both of these lists could go on and on. They illustrate the common problem that we have of separating the important from the unimportant. The difficulty arises because every important communication is surrounded by background (i.e., contextually unimportant) noise. The world (much like the factory) is full of noise. What we want to hear is typically competing with so much that is unimportant (or less important). Furthermore, sometimes we want to “overhear” or discern things not originally meant for us. The background noise makes that task especially hard.

Thus, we get to the fundamental task in competitive intelligence. That is, targeting the signals that we desire to hear, decreasing the “volume” of the background noise and, finally, interpreting the important signals correctly.

Unfortunately, many CI organizations apparently follow a different strategy. That is, there is little strategizing about the right signals, the methods employed are often designed to amplify rather than mute noise and precious little time is spent on excellent interpretation.

Some people say that competitive intelligence is fundamentally about early warning. Seena Sharpe expands this to say it is also about forewarning. My sense is that it is those two things plus supporting effective business strategy decisions. That extension mates the predictive function of warning with the proactive improvement of business approaches and results. After all, what good is competitive intelligence if it does not affect the bottom line?

Okay, here are some thoughts about improving the signal to noise ratio for your competitive intelligence.

1. Check to see if you are intentionally identifying critical signals. A good early warning system process exists for exactly this purpose because its key recurring question is whether you are looking at the right things. Management will be involved in this process with the competitive intelligence team. Their shared question is this, “What is coming that might affect our business prospects or strategies and how can we know, as soon as possible, when it might occur?”
2. Make sure that you are not increasing the noise. In my opinion, there is a seductive risk for many in competitive intelligence. That seduction is the indiscriminate love of data and tools. Our world is awash with data and easy ways to get to it. However, when we disproportionally are attracted to accumulating data, enamored with presentation or convinced that data (alone) causes positive changes in strategies, we are increasing noise at the expense of important signals. Perhaps there should be a limit on data collection activities especially when the cost of collecting more information decreases the time for meaningful interpretations. Thus, the next thought.
3. Rebalance your activities to favor more and better interpretations. Data availability is rarely an issue. History is replete with examples where the information existed, it was known by decision makers and, yet, opponents were able to “spring” surprises. Think of Pearl Harbor when the United States already had broken many of the Japanese diplomatic codes and was reading their classified messages. A retrospective view showed that, due to the sensitivity of the information, no one reviewed the complete sequence and context of the decoded messages. (Avner Barnea recommended an excellent book to me on this subject – “Pearl Harbor – Warning and Decision”.) The Japanese strategy (and possible actions flowing from that strategy) disastrously was missed.  Consider the 1973 Yom Kippur War. Israeli intelligence knew a great deal about the Egyptians and Syrians war plans but did not choose to mobilize in time to repel the initial attacks. Why? In part, there were multiple misinterpretations of the preparations for war. An excellent book on this topic is “The Yom Kippur War: The Epic Encounter That Transformed the Middle East”. This occurs frequently in business too. We accumulate hoards of readily available information using rapidly improving tools but poorly relate that information to strategy decisions. We present abundant data often yet seldom help decision-makers. Not a good combination when it is true.

There is much more to discuss about improving signal identification, decreasing noise and interpreting information better. As Stephen Covey says, begin with the end in mind. If the end is a more successful businesses, then improving strategies by helping strategy decision-makers requires better competitive intelligence signal-to-noise ratios.

The world is noisy. That is not news to anyone. Like the factory that I used to work in, the noise is indicative of activity. However, our challenge is to amplify and interpret the right signals so that others can make good use of the resulting insights.

You can see all of the results on my website at http://www.jthawes.com/surveyci.html.

Okay, caveats aside, the interesting result to me is that the self-rating (all companies combined) of CI effectiveness is above average in every category. The categories included the following.

1. Identifying Needs
2. Gaining Sponsors
3. Conducting Analysis
4. Interpreting Information
5. Presenting Conclusions
6. Effecting Change

The distribution (based on averaging the ratings per company across the six categories) suggests that most of these companies are being well served by their competitive intelligence professionals. Of course, it would be better also to survey the CI customers to determine their perceptions. Indeed, I did some of this in my 2010 Strategy Survey last month. The results from fourteen organizations is described at http://www.jthawes.com/surveystrategy.html. In that survey, one measure of competitive intelligence (“Reacting to Competitors”) received the lowest rating from strategy leaders.

Consider that for each of these six effectiveness areas, there were five possible responses (1=poor, 2=below average,3=average, 4=above average,5=excellent). Multiplying the six areas times the number of respondents means that there were 138 ratings. Observe that that the histogram shows a pronounced skew to the right (i.e., higher effectiveness).

The survey results prompt more questions than they answer. For instance, how would most of our customers evaluate our competitive intelligence services? If collectively we are so effective, why are there (seemingly) widespread questions about the need for and delivery of competitive intelligence? How are in-house CI teams doing compared to CI consultants? What is the actual impact that CI professionals want to make in an organization? And, how do competitive intelligence professionals think about improving their skills?

Maybe you would draw different conclusions than I did. What do you think that the survey results reflect?

We have several recurring issues in the competitive intelligence community.

One common problem is that it is difficult to discuss factual competitive intelligence projects due to the reluctance of companies to share detailed information. Of course, CI projects often represent sensitive work that reflects a company’s priorities and/or concerns. There are good (legal and ethical) reasons not to share many kinds of information.

However, as a result, the competitive intelligence community has a paucity of rich, relevant stories that stimulate effective problem-solving discussions. Furthermore, side-by-side comparisons of problem solving approaches are often missing in competitive intelligence community discussion. Without those comparisons, the typical solution discussion reflects one approach from one person.

We can do better.

Why not have a place where practitioners can share realistic (but not confidential) competitive intelligence cases? Starting from those richly detailed cases, we could have experts address the issues of the case and suggest problem-solving approaches. The broader community could also respond to both the case study and the experts’ comments.

That is why the Competitive Intelligence Case Studies website was created.

The Model

The Harvard Business Review has a long tradition of case study discussion. Each issue contains a strategy case study and responses from invited experts. Unsurprisingly, the commentators often differ in their interpretations of the case study facts and arrive at different solutions. The great value to readers comes from seeing the different solutions and exposing the thought processes of each expert.

The Idea

The Competitive Intelligence Case Studies website will host a regular forum for posing and addressing competitive intelligence case studies. Competitive intelligence practitioners and academics can contribute their thoughts, opinions and advice with respect to the problems described or implicit in the case study. The case studies may focus on analytical issues, people issues, trends or some other aspect of the competitive environment. Many cases will involve multiple problem dimensions and non-obvious solutions. After all, isn’t that typical in real life situations?

The Mechanics

Here is how the Competitive Intelligence Case Study effort will work.

1. Each case study would be approximately 2000-3000 words. I will write some of them. Others may contribute as well as described here.
2. For each case study, experts will be formally invited to respond. Each will receive the case study and have 15-30 days to return a response to me. A response would be <500 words (this might vary for specific case studies). Guidelines are located here.
3. I would be responsible for editing the responses and posting them (plus the case study) on the website (www.cicases.com). Each responder would have their picture and links to their business/school site “attached” to their response. See an example here.
4. Readers could also contribute comments once the case study was posted. A dedicated blog (blog.cicases.com) exists for this purpose.
5. Each case study would be published in a PDF file that could be used for marketing purposes. The file would contain the original study, the invited commentators’ responses and selected comments from others.

Here are the opportunities for you.

Would you be interested in contributing? There are three ways.

1. Read and respond to the case studies and commentaries that are posted.
2. Volunteer to write a case study. (If you need help, I will be glad to assist.)
3. Volunteer to be an expert commentator and share your problem-solving ideas.

Let me know what you think.

Wow. Who would have thought that we would see the death of strategy in our lifetimes?

After all, strategy has been employed in so many ventures over hundreds (thousands?) of years and now, apparently due to the recent economic issues, it is “dead.” This shocks me as much as seeing the Berlin Wall fall in 1989 or as seeing Sadat address the Israeli Knesset in 1977. Are we experiencing a radical transition to a post-strategy business era where reflexive actions completely replace strategic reflection?

I doubt it. It would be better for readers of such pronouncements to translate the death knell statements to what they really mean.

For instance, in my personal life, a surgeon once told me that a particular procedure that I needed was “impossible.” He implied that attempting the surgery would cause more harm (i.e. my death) than good. Luckily for me, we “translated” his statement from “it is impossible” to “I can’t do it” and reacted accordingly. We found a more experienced surgeon that could do what was needed. Had we accepted the first doctor’s words verbatim, you would not be reading this column.

Similarly, when someone says that strategy or strategic thinking is dead, there are possible translations that are important. You have to decide which one fits bests. Here are five options.

1. “Strategy is dead” might mean “we cannot sell our strategy services the same way.” This applies specifically to consulting companies that have large businesses around formal strategy processes. Typically these are high-dollar engagements with a specific sales process. In recent economic periods, that sales process requires adaptation.
2. “Strategy is dead” might mean “near-term survival requires emergency actions.” Many companies have experienced this since 2008. Meeting payrolls, managing cash flow and preserving customers became critical. Those concerns crowd out (temporarily) discussions and energy devoted to what might happen in 2011 or later.
3. “Strategy is dead” might mean “our old strategy does not work anymore.” This applies to both the specific strategy and to the strategy process. Some companies established a strategy that is now outdated. This happens all the time and often leads to a healthy reexamination of the strategy. The danger is when the need to revisit strategic thinking (a common fact of business life) unfairly implicates the strategy process. That is, the thinking might imply that since the strategy is no longer working, perhaps the strategy process is no longer needed.
4. “Strategy is dead” might mean “our strategy process is broken.” This often occurs when the old strategy process is too rigid, infrequently evaluated or poorly implemented. Some companies are good at grand strategies announced every three years. In between announcements, life goes on and many unofficial changes to the strategy occur. For those companies, this indicates that the blend of top-down, prescriptive strategy and the bottoms-up emergent strategies is not in balance. Usually a company needs some of both.
5. “Strategy is dead” might mean “we are not getting good results.” Some companies would be better off saying that “our strategy is ‘sick’.” They would be better off with a “healthy” strategy versus jettisoning strategic thinking. Several high technology companies are reporting excellent results this week. Apple, for example, just had their best quarter ever. Do they have a strategy? Does Google have a strategy? Even the most casual observer can discern that both companies do. Strategy is not dead for them.

Beware of those that do not speak clearly. Their messages of doom mask other realities. Translate what they are saying to something nearer the truth. Strategy and strategic thinking are most assuredly not dead.

Competition is a constant.

My son competes in basketball. His team has many challenges. Perhaps the biggest challenge is that they are a new team (formed this year) competing against established teams that have played together for multiple seasons. Moreover, the other teams have “serious” coaches that teach sophisticated offenses and defenses. Those teams execute plays with coordination, skill and timing that give them decided advantages against less prepared teams.

Here is an interesting point. My son’s team has talented athletes. In fact, they have enough talent to win any game (even against the best teams in the league). Talent alone, however, is not enough. They need to have better offensive and defensive plays. They need to make better adjustments during the game to react to what the other team is doing. They need to learn more from their opponents to make their team better.

Is business any different?

Companies are constantly competing in markets everywhere. Some of the companies are established players with all of the advantages derived from that position. Others are “new to the game.” They have fewer obvious advantages and have to capitalize on disruptive strategies to change the game. No matter their current positions, both camps have to react to change to stay (or get) ahead.

Just as in sports, sometimes the difference in outcomes is not solely due to talent.

There are smart people everywhere. Most of my career has been in the corporate world surrounded by intelligent and resourceful people that created new high technology businesses. Lately, I have seen more of the drive and ingenuity of the small business owner. Are there many things more difficult (or more fun) than starting something from scratch? Being talented is important but it is not enough when it is not applied intelligently.

Competitive intelligence is a way to compete better

During halftime at my son’s basketball games, he will stop by the stands to talk with me. We talk about how the first half went and what he needs to concentrate on during the second half. Usually, I have an idea for him to try. For instance, in one game, the defense was not covering the jump shots from the free throw line. Maybe he could fake a pass to his right, step forward to the free throw line and have an open shot. Indeed, that is what he did and he was open for a clear shot (missed it, though – more practice between games needed).

Businesses need “open shots” too.

It is not easy to find such conditions because the competitors are playing active defense to prevent openings. Here are three things to remember.

1. Systems are competing. When considering competition and what to do it, recognize that two (or more) systems are competing. Focusing on a constituent part may be easier but may also lead to less viable solutions. Analyze multiple “moving parts” of the systems. For example, consider not only the competing products but also the engines (i.e., intellectual property, R&D investment, alliances) behind the product development.
2. Every competitor has a weakness. We hold up certain companies as the epitome of success. Ten years ago, the list might have been Sun, Microsoft and Yahoo. Today’s roster of high technology companies would include Google, Apple and Amazon. It will not always be that way. As the environment changes, many successful companies cannot sustain their advantages. New companies recognize weaknesses and capitalize better than the established companies do. The only question is “when?”
3. Every change is opportunity. And, of course, every change is a threat. Forward-looking companies are constantly seeking to understand change so that they can shape or adapt their strategies accordingly. Change is particularly threatening to “static” companies. These companies decide a strategy and completely focus on execution. No attention is given to competitors, market changes or anything else that might challenge their initial assumptions. Conversely, alert companies are constantly adjusting. Their great advantage is seeing and reacting first.

My son’s team is getting better. All of the parents can see the players’ efforts. We know that they are close to breaking through against the established teams. They are actively learning while improving their individual skills. Their teamwork is getting better at overcoming their well-prepared opponents. Perhaps this weekend will see our first win. After that, the sky is the limit!

How about you? Do you have competitive intelligence challenges in 2010? Are there things that you should do to get better against your competition?

I have created a short survey about competitive intelligence challenges to get a sense of what others are facing. Click here to take the survey. It will require less than five minutes of your time. Thanks!

The respondents answered five basic questions about strategy facing their organization or work group in the year ahead. The fourteen organizations mostly represented high technology companies ranging in annual revenues from $30M to greater than $10B. However, there were also startups and nonprofits included.

Here were the questions that I asked.

1. What is your relationship to strategy decision makers in your company or work group?
2. What types of strategy do you influence or decide in your company or work group?
3. How would you assess your company’s or work group’s strategy effectiveness?
4. What critical strategy challenges does your company or work group face in 2010?
5. What types of strategy help would help you most?

From the (admittedly) small sample, several interesting responses jump out.

Most of the people were involved in strategies at the business or product level. The survey included fewer that had responsibilities for financial, mergers & acquisitions or alliance strategies.

Each person ranked their strategy efforts across a few categories on a scale from one to five (5 = best performance). The categories included developing strategy, communicating strategy, executing strategy, reacting to competitors and so on. I averaged the ratings across all categories for each company to produce a composite rating. The distribution is shown below. The fascinating (though not entirely surprising) finding is that more than 50% of the organizations were rated no better than average (3 = average performance). Average is not likely to be good enough in 2010 (if it ever was).

Looking more at the detailed ratings, it becomes clear that most organizations rated themselves higher on the front end activities of strategy (i.e., developing, communicating, executing) and lower on those on the back end (i.e., ongoing management, evaluating, reacting to competition). To the extent this is true, it reflects a great vulnerability that a strategy may start strong but finish weak in the organization or market place.

Given where companies rate themselves, where do they see the challenges in 2010? The number one response was that they needed ways to gain new competitive advantages. Would not that require above average strategy performance? Or, maybe it would require better competitive positioning. Then, throughout the year, would not strategies need to be evaluated better to support adjustments to the strategies? The net is that the recognition of the challenge is dead on but that current performance of many organizations inhibits them from successfully closing their strategy gaps.

Assuming that they could have anything, what kind of help would people like with their strategies in 2010? I speculated before the survey that most might want help formulating the strategy. For example, what are the new products to introduce and how should they be marketed? Perhaps many would want help analyzing the competitive environment. Neither of these two possibilities garnered the most responses. Instead, most people simply wanted someone with experience to talk with about their strategy and to reflect on their plans.

There are many smart people working diligently on business and competitive strategy in 2010. It is not news to them that the environment is tough or that their companies’ have high expectations about the strategies. Neither is it news that their strategy efforts need to improve. For those people, the best thing to do may be to talk to someone that they trust to reflect with them about what to do better.

These are challenges. They affect how we think, act and feel about ourselves.

Business challenges abound, too. Many of us face the new year with the same old problems. We need to introduce or market products better. We need to deploy a beautifully crafted strategy throughout the organization. We need to turn our slumping business around to attract new customers.

We know that we have to do something different in 2010 (how did 2009 go for you?). That is not the debate. The challenge is deciding what to do and moving forward with something that will solve the problems rather than perpetuate them.

That is where strategic thinking comes in.

Long needed solutions often come when the epiphany of a new strategy occurs. Then, instead of trying the old approach, we do something from a new perspective. The beauty of a new perspective is that often that view is freeing. That is, the barriers to movement are removed, the organizational energy returns and a sense of hope becomes evident again.

I am conducting a survey about 2010 Strategy Challenges. The survey has five simple questions. When I am finished, I will analyze and report the survey results on my website and in my Strategically Thinking newsletter.

Would you give me your opinions?

Click here to take the survey. It will require less than five minutes of your time. Thanks!