Definitive Business Plan, Second Edition, The

Monitoring the world

As discussed in Chapter 5 , all your people should be constantly gathering information about your competitors and their products, actual and prospective customers, and so on. Build this feedback into your monitoring process. Make sure that your external assessment is up to date. Exchange information at formal and informal meetings – keep brain-storming your strategy in the light of the latest news about rivals' products, advertising, sales activities, R&D, industry mergers and takeover activity, world news and so on.

Strategic leadership requires one other skill. It is a readiness to look personally foolish; a readiness to discuss half-baked ideas, since most fully baked ideas start out in that form; a total honesty, a readiness ...