I want to mention that you used some traditional methods or practices. I mean the vital few, Balance Scorecards, SWOT. It was a tool with kind of a different concept. It was like you modernized all those things to 2015. It wasn’t that you took the crux out of it, you know the main ingredient out of it, but it was different. I read it again, and I enjoyed it and not like it was like I’m reading something over again? -jd
Related Podcast and Transcription: Thinking Strategically
Paul: Thanks. We have tried to take a 2015 approach. For example, what we try to have people do, it’s a good business tool and it’s proved the test of time, but what we do is we find people not really leveraged in it in ways that we think you could and we’ll go into organizations, for example we were working with a non-profit not too long ago, they came in we did our SWOT analysis. I said SWOT – strength, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats. I said, what informed your SWOT? How did you determine something was a strength, weakness, or an opportunity or threat? “Well, we did some brainstorming; we did a few other things,” I said, okay what’s the step that you should do before that in order to validate whether it’s a strength, weakness, opportunity, and threat.
We try to look at it in a way that allows people to use it in the process and use it in a way that enables them to identify what’s most important, but also as a bridge to something else. In a SWOT analysis, we would take the ‘S’, and we’ll say, what is it that’s unique, where’s your super strength, and is that a competitive advantage? It’s really a tool that will bring you from one place to another. We’ve tried to take some of those and update them and use them in a different way, especially with all the information going on now. We’re overwhelmed; how do we use tools to simplify that? We believe that SWOT is a tried and true tool if it’s used right.
About: Paul Butler is one of the authors of the new book, Think to Win: Unleashing the Power of Strategic Thinking. At GlobalEdg. LLC, Paul accelerates the development of leaders and organizations that require them to create and lead high performing cultures.