At the end of an invigorating but overwhelming day of discussing competitive intelligence, I often hear people ask for simplicity.

As I wrote about in “The Three Basic Competitive Intelligence Questions”, the simple formulation of “What? So What? Now What?” regularly resonates. People tell me that they finally understand competitive intelligence after internalizing those three questions. While that is encouraging, the questions are a framework with only the hints of specific actions.

“Just tell us what to do,” they say. “You’ve convinced us that competitive intelligence is important and that there is a lot to know about doing it right. Give us a three step approach that we can wrap our arms around and remember. We want something tangible to do!” they demand.

“Okay, okay, I’ll give you some steps,” I say. (Unsurprisingly, these steps correlate to the three questions in the framework.)

Here are three tangible steps that most anyone can take to get moving. If these issues are well covered, then there is a good start at competitive intelligence. Furthermore, after one pass through these steps, a company will understand competitive intelligence far better than most any simple formulation.

The survey was unscientific. Nevertheless, the results were a bit surprising (and valuable) to me. Perhaps they might reflect your situation as well. Maybe you are facing similar challenges in 2010 to improve your strategy effectiveness. You can download the survey here and view the complete set of results here.

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.

Certainty is a virtue, isn’t it?

Where would we be without confident, black and white answers to important questions? There is great comfort in knowing something to be true or in taking a position that does not need to be reexamined each day. So, we test our beliefs and fix them in our minds. Without such a process, life would be too incredibly complex. It is enough to deal with the new things without having to question what we already know. Makes sense to you?

And yet, unyielding certainty can be a trap.

When my daughter was young, it was a regular event every few months for her to ask if she could have a dog. My answer was always the same, “No, Sweetie, a dog is a lot of responsibility and work.” She cheerfully and consistently accepted my short answer (which never varied) for years. Then she approached me one night while I was sitting on the couch with my son. “Daddy,” she said, “could I have a dog?” Well, the usual tape started running, “No, Sweetie, a dog is a lot of responsibility and work.” When I resumed talking with my son, I could see out of the corner of my eye that my daughter had not moved. Turning back toward her, I could also see that there were tears in her eyes. Off she ran upstairs. My son and I exchanged bewildered looks. “What was that all about?” he asked.

That night as I was putting my daughter to bed, I found her lying there still affected by my answer. I asked her if she was upset at me. Without making eye contact, she nodded her head “yes.”

Quietly, I said, “But, Sweetie, you know that I always say ‘no’ when you ask for a dog. A dog is a lot of responsibility and work.” (Perhaps if I whispered the words she would accept them better.)

Turning to look at me directly, she delivered to me an important lesson.

“Daddy, you could have said ‘maybe’.”

There is so much simplification that occurs in strategy and competitive intelligence work.

Much of that simplification is necessary because the competitive environment is simply too complex to think that analysis can start from scratch each day. So, we analyze, categorize and prioritize so that the few most critical issues are worked hardest. Over time, the people that are involved know and can repeat the common answers to both the lower priority issues and those that are getting special attention. Indeed one measure of the success of a competitive intelligence program is the general awareness of the conclusions of the competitive intelligence efforts. What’s the problem with all of this?

Where I live it is common to have slab foundations (How to Build a Slab Foundation) for homes.

Slab foundations are solid blocks of poured concrete on top of which the structure is erected. There are several important characteristics that a slab foundation must have in order to support the house that is being built.

• It must be shaped correctly for the house. It is costly and difficult to alter the basic shape after it hardens.

• Although it looks like a solid mass of concrete, it actually conceals a great deal of infrastructure including electrical conduits, plumbing and cables (which provide strength).

• Everything attached to or embedded in the foundation must be in the right place (again, it is hard to change things fixed in concrete). For example, the plumbing for sewage should emerge where the bathrooms are planned to be.
• Finally, after doing all of the necessary things, it is important to preserve your flexibility for all of the remaining elements of the home. For instance, the placement of the second story wall for the guest bedroom is not to be tied to something in the design of the foundation.

The foundation serves its purpose even though it is not a visible feature of the home. The structure above obscures what is beneath it and many people give little thought to what they don’t see. However, you absolutely must pay attention to your CI foundation. And the quiet time after your first management presentation is a good time to establish what will support all that you do later.