In running the business course that we run at The Campbell Academy which we started this year, it became important for me to delve as deep as I possibly could into aspects of business that we run at the practice that I had never formally spoken about.
Next week, as we start to reach the end of the course with the last two modules, we enter the world of strategy.
I thought I understood this last year until I started to read around the whole subject. At first it became obvious to me that many people think they know what they are talking about and are simply talking rubbish. Making up long-winded explanations to make it sound more complicated than it actually is and therefore add value to their own advice.
In a conversation with Gary Marvin from Straumann (who will be teaching most of our Leadership module next week) we discussed what we understood as strategy together. His explanation was very clear.
He imagines himself in one position and walking to another, strategy to him is how you decide to get to the second position (car, plane, crawling on the ground, by what means necessary).
When reading around strategy it’s not quite as straightforward as that but there are certainly areas where it can be simplified. To start with though the following things are not strategy.
- To make 50% more money next year
- To have the best dental practice in the UK
- To be happy
- To be known as the best provider of healthcare in the East Midlands
These are all visions that are absolutely not strategy.
To my mind now, and following extensive reading on this subject, a strategy is the following:
Identification of a threat (a disadvantage) or an opportunity that can be leveraged to the advantage of the collective (that would be the business in this case)
There are countless anecdotal stories of success of strategies and how disadvantages have been overcome or advantages have been used to force a business (or an army or any other number of organisations) forwards to become an extraordinary success.
Sometimes these stories seem to differ to fit the bill but inspiring stories from politics, from the military and from other business tales do link to the philosophy.
Identify the problem or identity the opportunity. Work out a plan, solve the problem or to harness the opportunity and recourse the plan. Put time limits on the plan, add reporting into the plan and hopefully people will report back to see if it’s going well or not. A strategy can be an individual thing for a single person or an enormous project for a large company. Examples of my strategies that I have adopted are below.
- Complete an Iron Man triathlon in July 2015 – strategy written in October 2014. This involved equipment, training, behaviour changes, recourses, time allocation and organisation
- To increase the number of dental implants placed at the practice to 300 to 360 using existing recourses. We identified areas of the practice that could provide more implant placements and more implant patients. The patients were looked after in better ways. We encouraged ‘word of mouth’ referrals from patients and improved many different things in the practice in marginal areas that led to an increase in numbers. 6 months into this adopted strategy we are on target to exceed our expectations in numbers.
A strategic plan can encompass several strategies but it should not be too complicated, especially in a small business, focus is absolutely critical. Focusing in one area at a time to get better and maintaining that level in that area is a much better approach in trying to change everything at once. If you want to have a look into this subject going further towards it try this book – ‘Good strategy/ Bad Strategy: The difference in why it matters' by Richard P. Rumelt. You can get this on audio book or normal book and it’s quite incredible. It’s pretty deep but the chap that wrote it is fantastic, he used to be an engineer for NASA. He is able to break things down into really simple components to allow you to apply not only to your work but to half of your life as well. Good luck.
Blog post number: 1396
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