Sometimes, you only have a limited time to assess a situation. You can try to look, listen and question but very quickly you have to have an opinion, a course of action or a response. The truth is that in our hectic world, we are giving each other less and less time to make judgments about people and situations. I think that this is often true for competitive intelligence, also.

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?

An article in yesterday’s Wall Street Journal announced, “strategic plans lose favor” in the current economic environment. Executives, it reported, were adopting “just-in-time” decision-making according to a partner at McKinsey & Co. There is no longer time to “predict the future” and, anyway, the future was too uncertain. Now, quick adaptation and decisions were needed. Amazingly, some companies had even created “situation rooms” to monitor current events to support quicker decisions. An Accenture manager summarized by saying, “strategy, as we knew it, is dead.”

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.

Okay, we are far along in January for many people to confess. How exactly are those New Year’s resolutions going for you? Are you still going to the gym? Are you still laying off the extra slice of cake? Are you still being nice to all those annoying relatives that know exactly how to irritate you?

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!

The archetypical strategy story goes something like this …

“A small gathering of senior leaders is convened at a secluded site. The atmosphere is serious. An important decision is needed. Everyone there knows the competitors. They are attacking. Some of their attacks have been beaten back. As for the others, well, that is why the meeting is so urgent. The leader stands to speak. We must counterattack. Our stockholders and employees depend on our decisions. The organization must be aligned around a common strategy. What is that strategy to be? So many actions, priorities and resources must be congruent with it. It is time to act. Here is what we are going to do.”

When this scenario (or one like it) occurs, some days or weeks later various parts of the organization get their new assignments. Sales must target new customers. Perhaps their incentive programs are adjusted to reflect the new priorities. Marketing must adapt the product line messages to feature new attributes of the augmented product. Engineering must invest in different technologies to support new product features. Meanwhile, competitive intelligence gets new marching orders to track and report on new competitors and markets.

This is top-down strategy development. Sometimes this works spectacularly well.