Introducing our proven, simple philosophy
Symbiotic Management engages with ambitious companies by introducing them to the Symbiotic Strategy Cycle. Our goal is to work with you and create an environment where your daily activities are perfectly aligned to your strategy for growth. We believe this alignment is crucial to achieving future business success.
We are all constantly faced with an ever changing set of challenges and opportunities. Without having a formal plan or end goal in sight there is a risk that we simply allow ourselves to be buffeted by events and not create the time to determine whether or not we are heading where we really want to go. Without a vision or a road map which directs us towards that end goal we cannot check our course, decide how far we still have to go or even if we are moving in the right direction.
The Symbiotic Strategy Cycle makes these key disciplines easily accessible to every business, regardless of size or industry and provides an understandable and simple model which will drive not only the creation of the vision but allow the team to execute against that vision, thus delivering the ultimate goal as defined by you and your company.
We believe in a simple philosophy, THINK, PLAN, DO and each stage of our 8 step process is designed to ensure that all aspects provide a cohesive thought process, an action plan and most importantly an effective way of executing against that detailed action plan. At Symbiotic we believe that a company’s strategy needs to be tied directly to the day to day activities that occur within that business and that the execution of a strategy simply requires us to take that strategy and translate it into the series of steps/actions/tasks that we will perform on a daily basis to deliver the end goal.
STRATEGY=DAILY ACTIVITY x TIME
The Symbiotic Strategy Cycle©
Building on several decades of experience, we have developed an 8 Step process which also acts as a check-list to ensure that we have taken as many influences as possible into account before finalising and executing a robust strategy or vision for the company.
A crucial element of any strategy is making sure we have a cohesive vision – a strategy is like a dynamic jigsaw – you start with a visualisation of what the end ‘picture’ will look like. You are then faced with a large number of pieces which have to be shaped to fit with each other and produce the overall picture you originally envisaged. It’s not an easy task and made all the more challenging as the pieces often keep shifting their shape – you’ve no sooner put one piece in place when another jumps up having changed its shape and somehow it no longer fits. Your job as the leader of your business is to keep working those pieces into a coherent picture.
To help increase your chances of success you need to ensure as many of the pieces as possible are part of the same final picture before trying to fit them together. How do you best achieve this? You follow Steven Covey’s advice ‘start with the end in mind’. Put simply, every piece you add to this jigsaw, every action you take, should be tested against the final picture, and only becomes part of the jigsaw if you are sure it’s a good fit.
There are a few key pieces, like the corners of a jigsaw, which you really need to get right before the rest will flow. These are:
- The alignment of personal goals and business goals
- Confirming that your business core competencies match your strategic deliverables or you have a plan to address any deficiencies.
- Ensuring that you have both the skills and finances to execute the strategy or if not that you know where you can access these requirements.
- Reaching out to your entire workforce. Do they share your vision and are they motivated to help support the business in getting there?
- Creating a road map that can be broken down into measurable stages which allow you to see real achievement and progress.
THE 8 STEPS?