Choices. We have so many choices. But what is the best choice? How can we make sure we are doing the right thing? Can we ensure that we are choosing the right way and the best course of action?

One of the biggest challenges of decision-making is generating, assessing, and then choosing from among the different solutions there are to any given challenge. This is why for most decisions we use heuristics – simple rules of thumb – to avoid the extra brain power needed to make decisions. In neurological terms, we save load on the pre-frontal cortex by using automatic routines saved and accessed through the limbic system.

But we can’t always do that. Often, we are faced with a new or more important decision where we cannot entirely rely on previous experience. That might be buying a car or property, changing jobs, or just working out what to do in our free time, but if the choice has a large impact on time and money then we are likely to spend longer considering our options. Working out the best course of action (or “COA” in military parlance) is therefore a critical element of effective decision-making.

Asking the right questions to improve your decision

This stage of the decision-making cycle is all about considering options. By this point, we should have already established why we want to do something, what exactly we want to achieve and where we want to end up. Considering courses of action is about choice, we use the interrogative “which” within The Right Questions Framework. In other words, we are answering the questions:

• Which options (courses of action) are available to me?
• Which risks and opportunities will impact my decision?
• Which is the best course of action?

This phase can be further broken down into several steps. To help make the best choice we want to:

1. Brainstorm multiple options
2. Refine several courses of action
3. Assess the courses of action
4. Identify obstacles and risks
5. Decide the preferred option

This can be remembered with the acronym BRAID.

Having made the decision, we then move on to the next phase of decision-making where we develop the plan (and answer the how, who and when questions). But for now, let’s examine the four steps outlined above.

Brainstorming your options: questions that will help you

When facing an important decision, it is generally a good idea to brainstorm multiple ideas before narrowing down the options. This is an important phase as it can unearth new ways of approaching a problem and can free us from certain assumptions. If we restrict ourselves at this stage to what we think is just sensible, affordable, or realistic then we might miss out on important opportunities or insights.

For example, when I am coaching people, I often get them to answer a set of questions that explore multiple ways of looking at an issue. These might include:

• What do you think you should do?
• What is the logical thing to do?
• What would someone you respect do?
• What do you dream of doing?
• What would you do if resources were not a problem?
• What would make you happy?
• What would make you sad?
• What would you do if you could turn back the clock?

Brainstorming with a team

When I go through this process I prefer to do some thinking on my own first. I would recommend that any team starts by working as individuals first, even if for just a few minutes. This means everyone is fully engaged with the process and you avoid group-think. The team then benefits from two different levels of creativity; the personal and the team dynamic. If you start with the whole group it is likely that some of the individual ideas will be lost.

Once you have drawn some initial observations on your own you can address the challenge again in a team environment.  Other people will always bring an alternative view of a problem. So, I would recommend involving at least one other person in the thinking. Even if they just act as a sounding board of your ideas it will bring diversity to your thinking.

Lateral thought and forced association technique

You can also use lateral thinking techniques to generate ideas. One of the simplest lateral thinking techniques, and one I use when I am stuck for ideas, is the Forced Association technique. This method involves getting a set of random words or pictures and then linking them to the problem. This psychological hack forces our brain to create new neural pathways, linking otherwise associated packets of information in our neocortex. These new mental maps literally expand our minds to think of the problem in new ways and explore new solutions. If you want some help getting the random data then you can use free websites such as randomwordgenerator.com or  randomwordgenerator.com.

For example, I am trying to think of what I want to do in my summer holidays. I used randomwordgenerator.com to give me a random word and it gave me ‘morning’. By thinking of the word ‘morning’ along with the idea of ‘vacation’ my brain starts to prompt questions such as:

• What do I like to do in the morning?
• Where would I like to wake up in the morning?
• What would the perfect morning look like?

I am also flooded with pictures and memories; the sun coming up over a mountain as my feet crunch through frost-crusted snow, the smell of great coffee in an Italian café, the snuggly feeling of waking up in fresh hotel linen (knowing that I don’t have an alarm forcing me to get up). Suddenly I am full of ideas of things I want to do! And that is just one word and a few seconds of thinking.

I recommend having a play with the technique, even now for something you must do today. And if you are interested in exploring more techniques, then I recommend reading Lateral Thinking by Edward de Bono.

“Sometimes the situation is only a problem because it is looked at in a certain way. Looked at in another way, the right course of action may be so obvious that the problem no longer exists.”

Edward de Bono

Generating courses of action

Once you have brainstormed a long list of potential options, the next step is to refine this list down to a few preferred courses of action. Using the heuristic of The Rule of 3 I generally recommend three courses of action which can be developed in outline and inform a decision.

You could prioritise your list from the options using your intuition and what feels like the best option.

For example your intuitive options might be:

1. What is the most exciting option?
2. What is the most sensible option?
3. Which is the scariest option?

Alternatively, you might want to apply some rationale to the selection of your courses of action. One simple way to come up with three courses of action is to look at resources. You might ask:

1. What is the option if money is no object?
2. What is the option if time is no problem?
3. What is the option if people and skills are no problem?

Example of 3 Generic Courses of Action for projects and tasks:

When making a business or project plan then there are some other questions we can consider to create courses of action. For example:

1. Which course of action best fits what is most likely to happen?
2. Which course of action represents the worst possible situation?
3. Which course of action allows for the swiftest outcome?

Answering these questions allows three courses of action and outline plans that reflect

1. The logical plan (most likely)
2. The contingency plan (worst case)
3. The fastest effect plan (which is often the riskiest or costliest)

These questions work well when dealing with a critical (time-dependent) issue, so if these questions don’t suit (for example if money rather than time was the most important factor) then you could also ask:

1. Which is the most elegant (gold-pated) option?
2. Which is the simplest (silver) option?
3. Which is the cheapest (bronze) option?

Once three courses of action have been selected then the next step is to explore a simple outline plan for each. To do this we answer the questions:

• How will we achieve the goal (what are the necessary milestones, tasks, or steps)?
• How will this course of action be resourced?
• When could or should each step be achieved?
• Who can help or support each activity?

At this stage, we are not doing detailed planning so the answers to each of these can be simplified.

It is worth noting that this technique tends to favour business plans rather than personal plans. If you would like another way to prioritise your courses of action, I would recommend seeing which ones align most with your values (be that your personal values or organisational values). Using principles also helps us assess our three courses of action so we will explore that in the next section.

Assessing the courses of action using values and principles

Once we have three courses of action (with outlined plans to check their feasibility) the next stage is to assess them against each other and come up with the chosen course. As previously, you can just use your intuition to make the choice, but you may also want to apply some further logic. If you do have an initial gut feeling about which one you like, then make a note of it. Our intuition is based on our experience and preferences – so it is certainly worth considering – but it is also subject to our biases so it is worth noting to avoid subconscious bias subverting our decision-making.

My preferred way of assessing courses of action is by scoring them against a set of principles or values. To start, I will generally create a matrix, listing the courses of action on one axis and then the principle on the other. I then fill in the grid, scoring each course of action against each value out of 10. I then create a total score for each per the example below.

There is no limit to the number of principles you want to employ but for simplicity, I would not recommend any more than 7-8.

The principles you choose are dependent upon the decision. You might want to use your personal values if it is a choice that most impacts you, such as a change of career. If you are making a business decision then you may want to use your organisation’s corporate values. Equally, there may be a set of specific principles you want to apply. For example, in an investment decision, you might want to employ principles from an expert such as Warren Buffet. It is worth taking a little time to make sure you have the most appropriate precepts to score your courses of action against.

Assessing courses of action with opportunity and risks

An alternative or subsequent way to assess the course of action is considering opportunity versus risk. It might be that risk was considered as one of your principles but if not then it is worth thinking about now. Identifying and assessing risk is a subject in itself but for each course of action, it should be relatively easy to identify the top 3-5 most significant risks.

These risks should then be weighed against the overall opportunity. As with risk, it might be that your chosen principles best summarise the opportunity of a given course of action. If not then consider the potential pay-off, in time, money or quality, for each course of action. Then you can weigh the risk versus the reward. For example, sometimes it is riskier to move quickly on a decision but the payoff – in terms of cumulative gain, time saved or first mover advantage – might be a risk worth taking. This is effectively a simple cost-benefit analysis of your courses of action.

Making the right choice (and better future decisions)

Finally, having assessed the courses of action you can make your choice. Depending upon which course of action scored the highest or had the best balance of risk versus opportunity, you can now commit to that option.

Having made the decision, you can then go on to more detailed planning. You will likely find that your new plans will also incorporate lessons from the other options you looked at. For example, you might well keep the worst-case or contingency plan up your sleeve just in case something goes wrong. Equally, you might have a plan that has stages that incorporate further decision points, dependent upon the balance of risk and reward. As the plans develop, you will discover that the thinking at this stage is not wasted.

Going through this process of creating and assessing courses of action has a further benefit. The formal process forces us to think deeper which will reinforce any learning points for the next decision. Recording the process, and the final choice, also allows us to go back and measure how effective our decisions were. We will not always get things right, but this reflective process will help improve overall decision-making. Decision-making is a skill like any other and for effective learning, we need to be able to reflect on what we have done.

Picking the best course of action

So, if you have options and want to make the best-informed decision follow these BRAID steps:

1. Brainstorm multiple options (be creative)
2. Refine courses of action (down to 3 ideally)
3. Assess the courses of action (against principles or values)
4. Identify obstacles (and mitigate the risks)
5. Decide upon the best course of action (make the choice)

And one final tip, think about when you want or need to make the decision. It is easy to prevaricate, put off a decision, or miss an opportunity entirely. Setting a deadline and creating a timeline for your decision-making helps to avoid these outcomes. Depending upon the impact of the decision you might want to spend 5 minutes or 5 hours thinking through your choice, but as productivity experts will tell you, the best starting point is assigning time to make the decision, as that is a task in itself.

So, what decision do you need to make and when? If you can’t make the choice now, then take a few seconds to schedule time in your diary. And if you want some further advice on the steps to take then check out A Blueprint for Better Decision-Making.

“Opportunities multiply as they are seized.”

Sun Tzu

Trying to come up with a short pithy mission statement that encompasses everything you are about in life is not an easy task!  Do not worry – the concept of mission statements is bigger than just one individual phrase, as I will try to explain.  Mission statements exist in the context of lots of interlocking levels, generally not just as some isolated goal that stands totally alone.

Different mission statements within a single company

Imagine a company, a company that makes toilet rolls.  The vision of the company is that every posterior in the world should be blessed by the ultra-soft ‘Cushionette’ produced by the business.  They have defined their mission, their measure of success as: ‘to have a roll of Cushionette available in every lavatory in the world’.  It is a bold and audacious mission.

Different departments, different mission statements?

There are many departments within the company to allow it to function properly.  There are Sales; the guys in sales have a mission statement that is almost exactly the same as the company mission because they are trying to sell the product into as many spaces ‘in the world’ as possible.  For the Quality Control team, the mission statement is easy too, they need to make sure each roll of Cushionette is ‘ultra soft’.

How about the Finance team?  Defining the mission for the Finance team is somewhat harder.  It is harder still at an individual level: how do you create a mission statement that applies to the person who does the photocopying for the Finance team?  Yet, if they are going to be effective they need a mission that connects them to the greater vision and shows them how they can make a tangible difference in achieving the bigger goal.

So the Reprographic Officer (photocopier person) will have their personal mission statement.  Let’s say in this case their mission statement is “to always produce copies that are timely, accurate and cost-efficient” but that mission is a sub-set of the Finance team mission, which is, in turn, a subset of the company mission.

Linking and nesting mission statements

This is important as the more productive each individual and team is the more productive the overall effect is.  Also, one failure of the smallest element can bring down the whole thing.  If the ‘Vice President of Printed Communications’ (another photocopier person) fails to copy the company accounts on time, the company is put at risk. All right, so this is stretching the point somewhat but on a serious note, any communications process can have a major effect on the effectiveness of a team or company.

So from the example above we can see that within an organisation there will be various missions that all need to interlock vertically across the company.  It’s like those Russian dolls that fit inside one another.  Not clear yet?  Let’s investigate this from another angle; here is some background to the theory.

Mission Command

The military has probably spent more time and effort on developing the idea of a mission than anyone else, and in the British military this overlapping hierarchy of mission statements is referred to as ‘mission command’.  This decentralised approach is to some extent based on the lessons learned from the effectiveness of German Stormtroopers and the ‘manoeuvrist’ approach of Blitzkrieg warfare, but again don’t worry if this means nothing to you, you do not need to be an expert in military history to understand the basic principles.

The idea behind mission command is to allow maximum freedom of movement, coordination and support at every level of the organisation by having interconnected mission statements.  It requires a highly trained and motivated force but when it works it is referred to as a force multiplier, in other words, it is highly effective and greater than the sum of its parts.  In business, this is sometimes referred to as ‘synergy’.

So maximum effectiveness is the aim; your main responsibility is to make sure you and/or your workforce are highly trained and motivated, and then to make sure the mission is clear and connected both up and down the organisation.

How to craft a mission statement

In the military, the mission statement actually comes in two parts.  There is both a ‘to’ and an ‘in order to’ phrase in the statement.  For example, I said earlier a mission might be ‘to capture the position on hill 321’ but it will also have a second half that says something like ‘in order to allow the battalion to advance’.  In other words, one mission is connected to another mission in a hierarchy.  In this case, the battalion cannot achieve its mission of advancing unless the enemy position on the hill is captured.  The battalion in turn will have a mission that connects to its higher command and so on up the chain. These go up from the tactical to operational, strategic and grand-strategic levels. That one mission to engage with the enemy on hill 321 will be part of a much larger picture such as a war between two sovereign states. Who knows, the whole campaign could pivot on that one action: that is why the mission is so important.

Mission statements work up and down and side to side

So just like the toilet roll company, all the missions interlock up and down the organisation. So that is the hierarchy – the up and down bit, but there is more.  There is a horizontal plane of mission as well as a vertical one. Every department in a company or every person in a team will have a slightly different mission but they need to complement each other. Crafting mission statements is likely correctly harnessing horses. You are trying to get people to pull together in the same direction.

As an individual you are likely to have a mission in your workplace that interconnects vertically and horizontally within that organisation but your career mission statement may have very little to do with other parts of your life.  Most of us have a range of responsibilities and wear a variety of different hats. Therefore we can expect to have different missions that are relevant to the various roles we play.  For example what is your contribution or role within your community?  What is your mission in terms of your family and relationships?

These personal mission statements have a hierarchy too as all the goals we set are effectively part of the mission and they only exist (or should only exist) to support the greater mission.  Confused? Don’t worry! Take a look at how to make an action plan.

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Quite often we limit ourselves and our plan to our present resources.  After all, it is reasonable to ask ‘Which holiday can I afford?’ before going and booking one.  Budgeting is good stewardship and I would certainly not recommend getting into debt on a whim.

But we will never be able to dream big or make macro leaps forward if we limit our goals to what we can achieve with the resources we have now.  It is better to first ask what we are passionate about doing, working out the resources required, and then thinking creatively of ways to get what we need.  That is why this question comes some way down the planning process.

The importance of logistics

An army needs logistics. A large portion of every military is concerned with delivering the right resources to the right people in the right places.  In fact, there are many more logisticians than infantry soldiers in the average army.  But the army does not exist for logistics. It has a mission to achieve. That aim is very rarely just to do with just moving men and equipment from one place to another.  Logistics is a large and essential part of achieving your aim. But it is there to support the mission, not to drive it.  History testifies to the fact that an army will beg, borrow and steal if necessary to get the job done if (or rather when) logistics fail.  You can still achieve your aim when resources are difficult to come by if you remain focussed; as the United States Marine Corps would say: you just need to ‘improvise, adapt and overcome!’

The right motivation is key

This is because there are very few times when finances and resources are fixed.  A compelling vision inspires us to innovate and save. It motivates us to earn and raise the funding that we need and find the tools to get the job done.

Why is it that many people who win the lottery often struggle. Why do they end up having spent their money within a few years?  The gambling industry sells winning as the dream; it does not provide a vision for what comes beyond that.  Many people who win do not have a clear idea of what they want to do with the money. They might take a nice holiday and pay off the mortgage but that is not a grand vision. Anyway, these things can be done without playing the lottery or the roulette wheel.

People who make (and keep) large amounts of money use it productively. Resources that continue to grow are usually driven by a vision beyond that of just making cash.  Bill Gates, the richest man in the world for most of the last decade, was not motivated primarily by money.  When he started Microsoft with Paul Allen they had a vision of a computer in every home. This dream, of how computing could transform the world, drove Microsoft. It became the most successful software business in the world and made Bill Gates a multi-billionaire.

Money, Manpower and Materiel

So we start with the dream and then work out what we need to make it a reality.  When we need to make something happen it generally comes down to the three ‘M’s:

• Money
• Manning
• Materiel

Cash, workers and equipment are all important but it is usually the first element, the money, which drives others; so this is the primary consideration here (we will look at the people issue more under the ‘Who’ question).

Estimating the cost

When we have our dream or our goal, we can start to put a cost against it.  If it is hard to assess the cost for a whole goal we can break it down, as we have done previously, and cost each constituent task or step.

Remember to put a cost against the time you invest in achieving the goal.  When doing something yourself you can feel you are getting it done for free but that is not actually true.  Our time is worth something, even if it is just the opportunity-cost of not being able to do something else while we are engaged with a task we have decided upon.

Often it will turn out cheaper to pay someone else to do a task that can be delegated as this leaves you just the things that no-one else can do and you will achieve your goal all the sooner.  We will look at delegation some more under the ‘Who’, but having broken down tasks and now putting costs to them will help you make decisions on the team you might need.

Alternative funding

Once you have estimated a cost for each individual task you will get an idea of the budget for the whole project.  Once this has been done you can start to think creatively about how to reduce the costs. Or you can seek further resources in more inventive ways (and no I am not talking about stealing here!).

For example, instead of paying for a qualified professional, could you get someone to do the work voluntarily? Perhaps you could offer them experience as an intern? If someone is still in training or education they may value the experience more than pay.  Alternatively, think about what service or product you might be able to offer someone in return. Bartering is as old as trade itself but sometimes people forget it. I have used this sort of transaction in building my business. For example I have coached people in return for help with my website.

I used this method when I employed someone to develop my website. They worked on the website in return provided some coaching to help them further their career. It was an easy win for both of us, and no cash changed hands.

Fuel the dream

Considering the resources we need and how we are going to get them is an important aspect of how we make our dreams real.  An idea becomes a lot more tangible as we think about and assess the tools and materials we need for the job. It can take some time, and may not be as liberating as some of the big picture thinking, but it is important so stick with it!

“First, have a definite, clear practical ideal; a goal, an objective. Second, have the necessary means to achieve your ends; wisdom, money, materials, and methods. Third, adjust all your means to that end.” Aristotle

Why every leader should know David Patreaus’ 4 stages of creating and Implementing Effective Strategy

Who can you think of who has genuinely created and implemented an effective strategy?

Plenty of people profess to have done this but few have accomplished this feat on the international stage or at the Grand Strategic level.

As we will see, from someone who actually has some credibility (no, I don’t mean me!), an effective strategy can be implemented in 4 steps.

But before we get onto this, what does strategy really mean anyway?

It is an overused term, and this can cause confusion. You might hear someone say, “My strategic approach is to…” and then list a series of goals. That is not a strategy. Neither is it the same as a mission or vision statement.

Strategy made simple

Strategy comes from the Greek word Strategos, which means military general. The General was the commander who gave the overarching directive to an army; the conceptual framework of how to defeat the enemy.

We might not be facing a real-life enemy, but we are sure to face challenges, which is why modern interpretations of strategy substitute these terms. For example, Richard Rumelt, author of Good Strategy, Bad Strategy defines strategy as

“A strategy coordinates action to address a specific challenge.”

In other words, it is the ends, ways and means of success, which itself is another good definition of strategy, still used by militaries today.

“Strategy equals ends (objectives toward which one strives) plus ways (courses of action) plus means (instruments by which some end can be achieved).”
Colonel Arthur F. Lykke Jr

Somewhat unsurprisingly, in terms of practical application, examples and theoretical principles, the military is still a primary source for the understanding of strategy. David Petraeus (retired US Army General) is a classic example of someone who has created and seen through an effective strategy at a genuinely strategic level.

Who is General David Petraeus anyway?

For those unaware, David Petraeus is a retired General, who commanded at the highest levels, and is also a former Director of the CIA. Suffice to say, having wielded that degree of power, he knows a thing or two about strategy.

Most importantly he knows how to implement one.

This is perhaps best illustrated by his time as overall commander of coalition forces in Iraq in 2007. The situation he inherited was certainly a strategic problem.

At the start of 2007, the US military was sustaining around 100 fatalities per month and around 700 wounded, while civilian casualties were around 1500 a month. Baghdad was effectively lawless and local militias as well as insurgents, of various ideologies, rampaged around the country causing mayhem.

Yes, I hear some of you say, this was a problem partly of the coalition’s making, and yes, there you have a point. In fact, the lack of a coherent long-term political strategy (beyond the military one) in Iraq was a large cause of this situation. But the challenge in 2007 remained, and General Petraeus was chosen to tackle the immediate issue of the horrific death rate.

The Surge Strategy in Iraq

After going through proper problem analysis, Petraeus developed the ‘Surge’ strategy. On the face of things, this could have been seen as just an increase in troop numbers, but it was a lot more than that. The plan recognised that previously the military had been using many wrong ways and means. It needed new ideas. Therefore, the surge was not just an increase of 30 000 troops but also encompassed new counterinsurgency (COIN) doctrine, changing the ways and means that would be used to stabilise the country (the ends).

The success of The Surge can be seen in numbers. Civilian casualties quickly reduced in 2007 and fatalities from mid-2008 to mid-2011 fell to around 200 a month. US fatalities dropped to fewer than 11 per month in the same period. Overall, the surge strategy resulted in nearly a ten-fold reduction of fatalities from 2006 figures.

Defence Secretary Robert Gates described Patreus’ ‘Surge’ campaign in Iraq in 2007 as the

“Translation of a great strategy into a great success in very difficult circumstances.”

Patraeus after the Surge

Petraeus did implement a successful strategy in Iraq but that does not make him perfect. He, like any senior leader, did not always succeed (he was not quite able to replicate the success of Iraq in Afghanistan due to the vastly different circumstances) and he messed up badly too (Petraeus had to step down as director of the CIA after it was revealed he was having an affair with his biographer).

As well as recognising that these failings just make Petraeus human, he is easier to respect in the aftermath as he has been willing to admit and address his faults (a virtue not seen in some very senior figures).

Petraeus, though nominally retired, is still very active. He is a visiting professor to prestigious universities across the world, and, due to his strategic wisdom, serves as an advisor and board member to multiple diverse organisations. So, even with his faults, his strategic mind is still highly valued.

Therefore, when he says something about strategy, I take note. Recently, he shared his four steps to developing an effective strategy at the Royal United Services Institute (the defence and security think-tank) and so I thought I would share these and some reflections upon his framework.

The 4 Steps of Developing a Highly Effective Strategy

Patreus describes the following four steps as his “intellectual construct for strategic leadership.” In other words, this is not just about creating a strategy, or having the leadership to implement one, it is both combined.

Task 1: Brainstorming

The first step is to get the big ideas right, and that is dependent upon understanding the problem. The problem is made up of various factors too, such as mission analysis (assessing what you must do) and situational analysis (getting a deep understanding of the circumstances).

You have a better chance of analysing the problem and coming up with novel solutions if you have real cognitive diversity. Petraeus sought out scholars and deep thinkers to help him with this problem analysis. This included people who would challenge ideas. This is vital as a leader surrounded by sycophants will eventually come undone from hearing what they want to hear rather than what they need to hear.

Once problem analysis is complete then the brainstorming can enter a phase of creating options or courses of action. Options are then evaluated, and the leader (commander) makes their decision of which course of action they want to pursue.

So, the key question for a leader at this stage is:

How can you create the best team to understand the problem and come up with creative solutions?

Task 2: Communicating

Once the leader has decided upon the preferred course of action, that big idea can then be communicated. Now the challenge is working out who you need to communicate to and how.

There may be many stakeholders inside and outside the organisation that need to hear the message. In the case of Petraeus, during The Surge it was not just the soldiers who needed to know the strategy; it was everyone from the Pentagon in the US and coalition partners, right through to the local population and insurgents.

And each stakeholder group has different information needs and so an engagement strategy becomes a sub-set of the overall strategy. This includes stakeholder mapping and thinking about how each group needs to be informed and what influence you want.

For example, Petraeus wanted to communicate with the local population and the end result was that he wanted trust and support – rather than hostility – so he needed to achieve a shift in mentality. Even for the coalition forces there needed to be a shift in mentality as they were going to have to change how they were going about their operations up to that point.

So, communication needs to be clear, as concise as possible and targeted to get people engaged and, where possible, empowered to support the strategy. When you are thinking of how to deliver the message a good starting point is The Rule of 3, which provides an easy structure to follow.

Therefore, the key question for the leader at this stage is:

Whom do I need to inform, how do I best communicate and what is the impact I want to have?

Task 3: Implementing

Once communicated, the next stage is implementation. This requires breaking down the big idea into an action plan. In military terms, this is the campaign plan where different lines of effort work together to achieve the desired end state.

But a good plan is not enough on its own. Effective implementation requires good leadership. The strategic leader knows how to adapt their style to best influence each team member or stakeholder. For example, influencing sceptics might require a more transactional approach as they might not buy into the vision of transformational leadership. So, the principal needs to be able to apply situational leadership whilst remaining authentic.

As with the brainstorming stage, the strategic leader needs a great team around them for the best chance of success. Being a strategic leader means selecting and supporting the right champions to lead each element of the plan.

Therefore, for implementation, the leader needs to ask:

How do I turn this strategic idea into an actionable plan and who can best realise each element?

Task 4: Assessing

Never assume a plan is set in stone. As Field Marshall Helmuth von Moltke stated:

“No plan survives contact with the enemy.”

In other words, it does not matter how good your idea is, when that plan interacts with the real world (and the many factors you could never foresee) the strategy will need to evolve.

We live in a rapidly changing world. Good leaders expect to refine their strategy is this VUCA (volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous) environment. What’s more, the ability to assess how effective a strategy is, and then adapt plans to improve them, is the mark of a high-performing team as well as a great leader.

A high-performing team retains a growth mindset, learns from failure and drives their continual improvement by constantly assessing what to start, stop or continue within the given plan.

Therefore, for the leader at this stage, the critical question becomes:

How do we improve the plan and reinforce success; what do we need to start, stop, or continue doing?

The Strategic Cycle: How to Create and Implement an Effective Strategy

David Petraeus’s strategic framework is very simple on the surface. The four stages of brainstorming,communicating, implementing, and assessing, create an easy-to-remember cycle.

And strategy is cyclical. One situation and set of effects lead to another. This was particularly true for Petraeus who went from overseeing The Surge in Iraq to being the commander in Afghanistan. This was a very different set of circumstances but one impacted by his own strategy in Iraq (namely the draw of resources from one area to another).

You may not be playing on the world stage but whatever level of leadership you aspire to, this strategic cycle can help you. Even if you are just working on your own and facing some big problem, the stages still hold true.

So, think, what is the biggest challenge you are facing right now? What can you do to brainstorm new ways of addressing the issue? What do you need to communicate? How will you best implement the plan to resolve the issue and how can you keep assessing your progress?