Strategic Planning Kit For Dummies®, 2nd Edition

Evaluating Your Company's Capabilities

The first phase of identifying your strengths and weaknesses is looking at your capabilities or intangible assets (intangible means incapable of being realized or defined — not having physical presence). These assets point to why organizations are good or not good at identifying and leveraging people, culture, and knowledge.

By breaking down your capabilities into certain areas, which I show you how to do in the following sections, you can start to define your strengths and weaknesses. After they're defined, align them with the strategic direction you want to go. You need people with the skills and knowledge who are motivated and resourceful to make your strategic plan a reality. Otherwise, you just have a bunch of good ideas on a piece of paper.

Human capital: Having the right people in the right positions

How many times have you heard someone say, “Our employees are our most important asset”? And how often do you feel like your company (or any company for that matter) backs up that statement? The time has come where big and small businesses alike no longer pay lip service to this statement. The trend is to spend more time and money on recruiting absolutely the best people. No matter how busy you are, not hiring anyone is better than hiring the wrong person.

After you have the right people on your SUV, making sure that they're in the right seats means they have the skills and abilities to do their jobs. Just hiring them without training and ...