do you have anyone on your advicesquad?

Mark Affleck http://www.yellowchairstrategy.com Posted November 2013

Who’s sitting at your strategy table—from OUTSIDE the

building—helping your organization embrace reality and think about future strategy? About managing future issues? About leadership into an unknown future?


If you answered nobody, you’re

part of the norm and not the exception. In fact, organizations everywhere on the planet mistakenly believe that all the

“answers” are INSIDE

their own building.

What’s the problem with that thinking?


The answers are NEVER inside the building. NEVER in your leadership meetings. Never on your strategic

planning retreats.

Nope, the answers are always OUTSIDE

in the marketplace and community.

The answers are where the people you serve live. Where your vendors operate. Where your competitors prowl at night looking for an opportunistic opening in your wall. Where people in pain need help.


LOOK OUTSIDE!

As a CEO Leader and strategist

for 25 years, I’ve learned that if the answers are outside, we should (must) look OUTSIDE. Forming an

AdviceSquad is an effective way to get that job done.

More than a board of directors, an AdviceSquad is a

cross-sectional representation of the players in an organization’s stakeholder ecosystem.


An AdviceSquad opens up

your organization to fresh input that challenges the most cherished assumptions about where it is now and where it must go in the future.

The payoff is generating

new information by getting more eyes and points of view on the organization’s Radar screen.


Done properly, an AdviceSquad

can provide invaluable third-party direction on key projects, new opportunities, challenges looming on the horizon, crisis prevention, and crisis response.

Over time, the AdviceSquad will help an organization

become adept at spotting the critical issues that will determine success or failure in the future.


YOUR FUTURE…

I’ve had much success with this model by developing a focused theme for the

AdviceSquad—like technology,

or costs, or competition--and then letting the group loose to help

“frame the future.”

FRAME


The best success story for me came when

my organization faced a revolutionary change in global trade policy that would

affect every part of our business.

I assembled an AdviceSquad of

experts in the vortex of that issue and debate.


We had economists, government representatives, academicians, consultants and others meet to drill deeply into every part of the issue.

The result was a catalytic spark. That produced a strategic response that not only prevented a negative hit, it led to incremental revenue and stability.


The Author

CEO Change Leader Strategist Issues & Crisis Manager As CEO of YellowChair Strategy, he helps leaders transform their organization to “survive today and thrive tomorrow.”

MARK AFFLECK

do you have anyone on your advicesquad?

Business