Two Questions for Every Strategy Session

I had a basketball coach who would always say, “Time and score are facts. What you do next is all that matters.”

I had a basketball coach who would always say, “Time and score are facts. What you do next is all that matters.”

I think the same is true for companies — you can tell where you are but you have to guess at what comes next — and decide what to do based on what you know today.

You are faced with question after question and it can be easy to fall into the habit of deciding what to do without deciding what your timeframe is for measuring the “ideal” answer to a question. You forget to ask if it is the best decision today, is it also best a year from now? 5 years from now?

What might happen? What could change that would make it no longer ideal? Then what?

The real answer to “ideal” in any timeframe is we don’t know — so the two questions I always love CEOs to ask are,

1. How easy is it to unwind this decision/what options does the strategy eliminate?

2. How will we know when/if we should pull the ripcord and what are the specific, objective measures in the business that will make it obvious?