Turn to: jackwelch: strategy is to think less and be quick to act

Personal understanding ：
strategic ： Is to make a basic plan , Establish a general direction , Put the right person in the right place , Then improve and implement with indomitable attitude
If someone is catching up with you , Then he just gave you a good reminder , Competitors do more than you do , You'd better find out the reason behind it
To find the right strategy , You have to assume that the opponents are very good , Or at least as good as yourself . They're also very fast , Even faster . In predicting the future , No matter how extreme the paranoid idea is

jack · Welch ： Strategy is to think less , Action sensitive

jack · Welch ： Strategy is to think less , Action sensitive

Strategy is making basic plans , Establish a general direction , Put the right person in the right place , Then improve and implement with indomitable attitude . If you want to win , So when it comes to strategy , It is necessary to meditate less , And quick to act .

In my submission , Strategy is just a living thing 、 Breathing 、 A completely dynamic game . It is interesting 、 Quickly , It's alive , Very straightforward —— You choose the right direction to work , And then do it anyway . If you want to win , So when it comes to strategy , It is necessary to meditate less , And quick to act . I don't have any complicated theoretical models , Let's talk about the three steps of making a strategy . In my own career , No matter in what kind of enterprise or industry , Whether at the peak or trough of the economic cycle , From Mexico to Japan , This method has worked quite successfully . Who knows? ？ Brevity may be one of the reasons for success .

Three steps to developing a strategy
First , Make a general plan for your business —— Find smart 、 practical 、 Fast 、 Ways to gain sustainable competitive advantage . To complete this basic plan , The best way is to answer a series of questions I have prepared for you , I boil these questions down to “5 Slides ” above , Each of them contains a class of questions . Complete this step to plan the assessment , It may require those who are knowledgeable to attend , The time required varies from a few days to a month .
secondly , Put the right person in the right place , To implement this big plan . It's easy to say , It's not . When implementing the plan , You need to find out , What kind of people are suitable for engaging in popular industries , What kind of people are suitable for high value-added industries . I don't like wearing colored glasses to see people , But I have to admit that , If your strategy matches the skills of your employees , That's a good thing .
Last , Keep exploring the best practices to achieve your plan . Whether in your own business , Or outside the enterprise , Must learn to pursue them , And we should continue to improve . If your company is a learning organization , People are eager to do everything better every day , Then your strategy can give full play to its power . Employees will learn the best skills from all over the world , Continuously improve the efficiency level of the enterprise . contrary , Even if you have the best plan in the world , But if there is no such learning enterprise culture , Nor can you gain a lasting competitive advantage .
therefore , Strategy is nothing more than basic planning , Establish a general direction , Put the right person in the right place , Then improve and implement it with an indomitable attitude . I don't think the problem needs to be more complicated .

Today we are in an era of drastic changes , that GE Why can it be as long as 20 We have adhered to a strategic direction for many years ？ The answer lies in , If the general direction is correct , It has a certain width , The strategy does not need to change frequently , especially , New projects can also be added . For this purpose , Over the years , We launched four campaigns to continuously promote the company's overall strategy , That's globalization 、 Additional services 、 Six Sigma and e-commerce . Besides , The reason why our strategy has such lasting vitality , The main reason is that it is based on the following Two unbreakable principles ： Popularization is bad , Talent is everything . actually , All the decisions we have taken about resource allocation are based on the above beliefs . indeed , Some enterprises are good at winning in the popular business environment —— Dell computer and Wal mart are such great cases , They are at cost 、 We have taken the initiative in terms of quality and service , And won the victory in the extremely fierce competition . But that process is also extremely difficult , You can't make any mistakes . My advice is , When you think about strategy , We should consider the direction of anti popularization . Try to create different products and services , Make customers inseparable from you . Focus on Innovation 、 technology 、 Internal processes 、 Additional services, whatever makes you different . If you take this road , Even if you make some mistakes , It can still be successful .

That's the theory ！

Make the strategy practical
To develop practical strategies , The first step is to determine the general direction in which we can gain lasting competitive advantage —— Or say , On how to win , Give insightful answers . Do that , You need to explore what I'm talking about 5 Group problem , Immerse yourself in it , Racking my brains , Finally, give your own answer . While doing this exercise , I also assume that you have prepared a strategy , Whether you write it down , Or just in my mind . Or say , You have a strategy , But I don't know if it will work . Next , Let's look at that 5 Slides , They are the way to test the feasibility of your strategy . We want to explore whether this strategy will allow you to reach your destination , If it doesn't , And how to fix it , Even completely replace . Another thing to add is , The strategy is CEO、 The work that enterprise leaders and their direct subordinates should undertake . If a company has a healthy corporate culture , Then the leader can see the different interdependent parts of the whole organization . They know their employees , Know where the innovation source of the enterprise is , It can also identify which businesses contain the most abundant opportunities . also , They are the people who ultimately decide the direction of resource allocation according to the requirements of the strategy . If the implementation of the strategy is successful , They will be applauded ; If you fail , They are also responsible for this . If you have a great team —— frank 、 Shrewd 、 Be passionate about your career 、 Dare to disagree —— So it will be a very interesting and inspiring thing to finish such homework . If you concentrate on doing , It only takes a few days to a month . Next , It's time for action .

     Slide 1： What is the arena like today ？
In your industry , What kind of competitors are there , They are big or small 、 Is it a new enterprise or an old company ？ In the global market and in every country's market , What is the share of these enterprises ？ Which market is your company better at ？ What are the characteristics of this industry ？ It's popular , Or high added value , Or in between ？ It's a long period , It is also short period ？ Where is it on the growth curve of the industry ？ What are the main factors that determine the profit margin ？ What are the strengths and weaknesses of each competitor ？ Whether their products are excellent ？ How much effort have they made in research and development ？ How about the sales ability of each competitor ？ To what extent is its corporate culture performance oriented ？ What are the main customers of this industry , How do they buy ？ these years , I am often surprised , Because such a simple closed door discussion may lead to countless heated discussions . actually , People who work in the same office often have completely different views on the same competitive environment , This is not uncommon . Admit that your industry is a real popular industry , That kind of taste really makes many people feel painful . for example , No matter how hard we try , It is still almost impossible to make GE People in the automotive business department accept this reality . I have attended numerous meetings , These questions were raised at the meeting , then , People began to argue about how much resources to invest in R & D and marketing to keep the product characteristic . Another important question on this slide is about the size of the market . Too common is , People always like to think of themselves as market leaders , In the end, it often limits the pace of market expansion .GE It has launched a campaign to become one of the top two in every industry , This plan has inadvertently played a negative role . More than ten years later , We suddenly realized that , Managers of various departments have narrower and narrower definitions of their own markets , In order to make their share seem very large . We immediately put forward suggestions for correction , Each business unit must define its own market in this way —— Their share in any market cannot exceed 10%. Under this limitation , People have to find new growth ideas , And the opportunities for development have suddenly become ubiquitous . At those seminars , This is how I talk about the definition of the market ： Since I often sit in a chair , Then I want the audience to think of themselves as chair makers ; They can define their market as the kind of chair I usually sit in —— There are curved metal handrails 、 Blue cloth and flexible wheels , It can also be defined as all types of chairs ; however , They had better define their market as all kinds of furniture . Have a look , How much difference in market share will result from these differences in definitions , And how much impact it will have on the strategy ！ This is the discussion , Show the meaning of the first slide . A rich event 、 A wide-ranging discussion , Put everyone's answers together —— The ultimate goal is to determine the general direction .

     Slide 2： What is the recent competitive situation ？
In the past year , What are the possible moves of each competitor that may change the market pattern ？ Whether someone has introduced a new product that can change the game situation 、 New technology or new sales channels ？ Whether there are new entrants , What was its performance last year ？ These questions bring us back to real life . competitors A Poached your most important salesperson , and B Two new products have been introduced ,C and D Amalgamated , Facing various integration problems . Some information can be drawn from the discussion of the questions raised on the first slide , But what we need to do now is to deeply analyze the trend of each competitor . Their research should be meticulous —— Even know what each opponent eats for breakfast .

     Slide 3： How are you doing ？
Past year , How does your performance affect the market competition pattern ？ Have you acquired a business , Introduced new products , Poached the main sales personnel of the opponent , Or get the concession of a new technology from an innovative enterprise ？ Have you lost some of your competitive advantages in the past —— An outstanding sales manager , A special product , Or a proprietary technology ？ This slide has one of the most important functions ： If someone is catching up with you , Then he just gave you a good reminder . It's simple , Slide show 2 And slides 3 Compare the , You will understand whether you are leading the market or need to catch up . Sometimes , These two slides will tell you , Competitors do more than you do , You'd better find out the reason behind it . in addition , From the comparison of these two slides , You can clearly see the competitive situation your enterprise is facing . With GE The company's medical department is 1976 Take the story of .20 century 70 Early S , In the UK EMI The company invented CT Scanner , This makes the traditional X Optical machinery manufacturer —— Siemens 、 philips 、Picker And we —— Caught in a fierce battle of medical instruments . Soon , All the manufacturers have announced that they have made scanners at the price of millions of dollars , The time difference between them is about 6 Months . and , Every company claims that , The scanning speed of the self-produced instrument is faster than that of the previous models 30 Second . Actually , Everyone is very dissatisfied with this situation ,CT The manufacturers are fighting fiercely , And our customers —— Hospitals —— Also feel very confused , They spent huge sums of money on new technologies , Less than a year may be out of date . Seeing this , Walter, the boss of our medical department · Rob and his team came up with a brilliant idea . That's it ,GE Efforts should be focused on developing a different scanner , It can continuously upgrade hardware and software , The annual cost does not exceed 10 Thousands of dollars . such , When we sell machines, we can say ：“ If you buy our Continuum A series of machines , Then we will continue to provide upgrading services , Keep your technology free from the risk of obsolescence , And the cost is just a fraction of the new machine .” Continuum The concept of series machines has revolutionized the rules of competition , Let us sit on the top of the industry , And for decades . The key point is , Slide 2 And slides 3 It's coordinated , They can eliminate all static things , Let you be well prepared for future problems .

      Slide 4： What are the latent variables ？
Next year , What are you most worried about —— Is it possible for competitors to do something , Get you out of the game ？ What new products and technologies your competitors may adopt , Even change the rules of the game ？ Will there be a merger and acquisition against you ？ These problems may be easily ignored by the vast majority of people , Or they don't give them the attention they deserve . In answering these questions , Most people underestimate the strength and potential of their opponents . Their implicit assumption is often , Competitors will still perform like slides 1 In the —— And it will never change . for example , stay 20 century 90 years ,GE Engineers in the aircraft engine industry once thought , They have worked for Boeing 777 The plane is designed with a perfect engine ——GE90, This newly designed machine can produce up to 9 Million pounds of thrust , This cost us 10 Billion dollars . But there's a premise , That is, we assume Pratt Whitney （Pratt & Whitney） Will be unable to develop new engines , Nor can they make improvements to their existing engines , To achieve that high thrust level . We are totally wrong . Pratt Whitney only spent 2 Billion dollars in development costs , Let their existing engine produce 9 Million pounds of thrust . Because their costs are lower , So we sell GE90 When the price is lower than the planned level . We underestimated our opponents , Because we think we know all the technical answers . The story has a lucky ending . After a few years , Boeing has developed a remote 777 New series models , It requires 11.5 Million pounds of thrust . because GE90 It's the latest design , So it can be improved , Meet Boeing's requirements . such , We finally became the sole supplier of Boeing . But due to early mistakes , We still went through a few painful years of meagre profits . To find the right strategy , You have to assume that the opponents are very good , Or at least as good as yourself . They're also very fast , Even faster . In predicting the future , No matter how extreme the paranoid idea is .

      Slide 5： What do you have to win ？
What can you do to change the competitive landscape —— Enterprise merger 、 New products , Or globalization ？ What can be done to keep customers sticky , More loyal to you than before , Rely more on you than on others ？ This is the moment to leap from analysis to action . You have to make a decision , Whether to launch new products , Carry out M & A , Double sales , Or invest in the construction of new production lines . actually , When Walter · Rob and his team made up their minds , We should devote major resources to Continuum This is the case when developing series products . The success of this strategic action , Give Way GE Our medical department has been loyal to our customers for many years . After completing the questions on this slide , Your strategy will become very clear 、 It works . Your basic plan is feasible , Or you need to make some changes . Even if you haven't thought about strategic thinking before , This exercise process can also help you develop .

in any case , You have already started .