Why Your Business Strategy Fails

Did you ever wonder why a business strategy fails?  More than 70% fail, you know.

You create a great business strategy.  You just know it’s going to take you to market leadership, and a big bottom line  result.Six months later you’re feeling like you’re pushing on a rope. But you just know everything will come into sync soon.

A year later, you’ve tried everything. Your brilliant business strategy has gone no where. You’re wondering what the hell happened.

You just know that your ideas were brilliant. You know your product offering is just right for your buyers. You need to understand why your business strategy failed.

Why a Business Strategy Fails

I’ve worked with hundreds of businesses to create breakout strategies. Whether a startup, a growth company or a turnaround, the problems with strategies are always the same.  I call it the Gap.  Actually, there are a few Gaps.  These Gaps are the reason why business strategies fail. Let’s take a look at the 3 biggest gaps that limit strategic success.

1.  The Reality Gap

This gap is a by-product of the way our minds work.  We each view reality in our own unique way. No two realities are the same. That said, when we group together in a business, we begin to create a shared reality. Based on what the group (aka the herd) believes to be true.

We all sit in the same rooms and agree to the reality of our markets, our buyers’ needs and our competitor’s weaknesses. This shared reality forms the basis of our strategic assumptions.  The problem is this: Our  shared reality usually doesn’t match the reality external to our group or business. Which means the fundamentals of our strategy are out of sync with our markets and buyers.

2. The Learning Gap

This gap is caused by a paradox. Expertise and knowledge is what we need to define great strategies.  Yet that same  expertise is what prevents us from defining true breakout strategies.  Why?  Because we limit the options and opportunities we  recognize based on what we already know.

Our expertise literally narrows the ranch of new options and opportunities we can see, hear or think about.  That same expertise causes us to ignore or throw out potentially lucrative options because they don’t match our known truths. That means we create strategies based on a subset of the options and opportunities available to us. That means our strategies often miss the mark when it comes to new markets and opportunities.

3.  The Change Gap

Then there’s the biggest gap of all. The Change Gap. This gap is created by resistance to change. We’ve all seen it. Leaders get excited about a new strategy. We take it to our teams and the next thing we know, the donkeys come out. Feet dug in hanging onto the way we’ve always done it. This resistance to change is one of the biggest reasons even great strategies fail.

While we give lip service to the new, we hang onto the old.  That great strategy is never fully executed because we can’t change the direction of the organization.  But it’s not our fault. The resistance to change is also part of being human.  It’s a program called the status quo bias and it impacts every human on the planet.

Bridging the Gaps

The great news is that we can all learn how to fill these gaps to avoid why business strategies fail.

How?  By Paying Attention.

• Watch for the gaps at work in yourself and your teams. We all have them, so admit it and watch for them.
• When you catch yourself or a team member in a gap, stop, pay attention and ask questions.  Lots of questions.
• Try to prove yourself wrong about each and every assumption you make. Don;t look for proof, seek ways to show you’re wrong. You’ll create a better solution and avoid mistakes.
• While you’re at it, go talk to people you know outside of your industry. Ask them for ideas. Some of the best innovation ever comes from other markets, industries and business models.