"We Don't Have A Strategy Yet"

Creating a solid strategy begins by recognizing when you lack one.

When President Obama was quoted so widely last week, it reminded me of some great advice from John Parikhal, founder of Joint Communications, The Media Fix and Breakthrough Management.

It's also a good time to ask yourself if you have one. 

John calls strategy the outline and says it must be long-term.  “Tactics are the colors that we paint with inside the outline.”

Keys to building an excellent strategy, which I assume the Prez is waiting for from the Pentagon and our potential allies:

1.  ID the win.  Establish a clear long-term goal.
2.  Know the players, both your troops and the enemy.
3.  Sift all available info to focus the plan on reality.
4.  Know the rules of offense, defense, flanking and guerrilla warfare.

Admitting you don’t have a strategy is actually a great place to start building one.  The tools to get it done (for a radio station, since I’ll leave foreign policy to greater minds):

1.  Research
2.  Advertising, promotion and marketing.
3.  Management skills.

The researcher feels every GM should spend 12 hours outside the radio station each month by simply listening to the radio with a different member of his staff and take the morning personality or team for a drive in morning traffic to listen to the radio at least once every 90 days.

Parikhal encourages his clients to learn what motivates your own staff and your listeners psychologically.  Every person is unique.  Figure out what makes each of them tick.

In your workplace, for example:

Drivers        Expressives     Analytics        Amiables
——            ——                 ——               ——
Save time    Save effort       Save face       Save the relationship
Action         Applause          Be right          Trust
Control        Social              Avoid              Support
GM             Talent             Researcher    Sales

He says that “most companies don’t understand Analytics and Amiables, in spite of the fact that they most often are the people who are the “long timers” on every staff.