Growing the Top Line

CHAPTER 10Internal Assessment: Step 2: Understanding the Force and Resourcing We Bring to the Fight

In creating any strategy you have to be self‐aware: who you are, what you are trying to do, your inherent strengths and weaknesses, and how you are resourced. I asked Pat Burns how important this step and the accuracy of this assessment was. Here is his answer to the question, “How accurate does this assessment need to be?”

Well, near perfect. You’ve seen it too many times, as I have. You can have a beautiful strategy, but that’s just a PowerPoint deck, right? You have to have a team that can bring that strategy to life and put in an operating cadence to go execute. If even one function isn’t able to perform their needed role, it can keep you from executing well . . . You have to think about the team’s bandwidth. Whether it has the ability to integrate or to manage a new product launch in a new acquisition.

Here’s an example. Our solar business did some very good market work. Good strategy work to figure out the tracker segment in their market. It is a great place to play, and they did a great micro market analysis and figured out where the attractive niche to play would be, where the big guys weren’t. So, we started with an organic strategy. Concept was great, the design was good. But we didn’t have the internal engineering capability and design process we needed. So, we launched ...