Preface
In this podcast, accomplished author and business consultant, Dr. Felicia Littlejohn, is sharing the reason why she authored this content and outlining what professionals are expected to gain from this learning journey.
Duration: 10:00
Host: Valencia Littlejohn
Guest: Felicia Littlejohn
Series: Podcast Radio
Podcast Topic: Foundations in Strategy for Commercial Business Leaders
[00:00:03] Valencia:
Hi. And welcome to the weekend edition of Podcast Radio. My name is Valencia, and I am your host for this evening. And today we have Felicia Littlejohn. So Felicia, could you tell me a little bit about yourself?
[00:00:18] Felicia:
Yes. Okay. So I am a consultant focused on driving business growth, and I do that through focusing on strategy management, leadership development and best practices.
[00:00:31] Valencia:
Wonderful. So I understand that you’re working on a series on foundations in strategy. Can you tell me more about it? And what was your motivation for creating content on this subject?
[00:00:46] Felicia:
Valencia, thank you for the question. As a business consultant focused on driving sustainable, profitable growth, over the years, I’ve had the opportunity to work with a number of companies, and the one common theme that I see amongst all of them is that they struggle with strategy management, resulting in a lot of issues from churn, turnover, and stagnation. And I’m dedicated to helping those businesses not only survive but to thrive.
[00:01:15] Valencia:
That’s wonderful. And who is this content developed for?
[00:01:21] Felicia:
This content is developed for those functional leaders, those members of the organization that have subject matter expertise in a specific area, particularly the commercial leaders, that are focused on driving revenue, profitability and growth in the company.
And I’m looking for the leaders who are implementation focused for this training. So those that are involved in the day to day support and also the growth of the business. They’re responsible for reporting on key metrics and strategic planning. Some examples of who this content is for is product managers, strategic marketing, sales and business development.
And also, let me add, this includes management of all levels – whether they are manager, director and above.
[00:02:07] Valencia:
Okay. And why this audience.
[00:02:11] Felicia:
This audience really targets the main focus for strategy, and that is the biggest gap is the need for developing strategic thinking skills for functional leaders. That is the biggest complaint that I’ve heard. And it really makes sense that if these leaders are engaged in that way. This would really well position both these leaders in the business to provide high impact opportunities that these business are looking for. These leaders have the insights that business needs – and by insights I mean, they know the company, the customers, the competitors, the markets. This is their subject matter expertise.
They’re also action oriented. The last thing that the business needs is to develop a strategy that just sits on the shelf. So this team of resources, that is the commercial business leaders, are focused on activating the strategies and implementing those both from their own leadership perspective, but also to activate the cross functional teams to deliver against these goals.
In other words, when the functionalities are involved, they apply their insights, plus, strategic thinking and what you end up with is an effective strategy that activates the organization to achieve a high impact goal.
[00:03:22] Valencia:
So you said, foundations in strategy. What topic within strategy?
[00:03:29] Felicia:
Specifically, I’m focused on for this particular series, Action Oriented SWOT analysis
[00:03:36] Valencia:
And what is SWOT?
[00:03:39] Felicia:
SWOT stands for Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats. And this tool is used to help identify a business’s core competencies as well as opportunities for growth.
[00:03:51] Valencia:
Okay. As a business professional, what would I use a SWOT analysis for?
[00:03:59] Felicia:
You would use that tool to help identify opportunities that need more attention. So, for example, if you’ve identified your business as being weak in customer loyalty, then as a business professional, you may opt to develop programs around this.
Perhaps you’re looking at understanding customer satisfaction issues. Maybe you’re looking at your competitors and how to make your product more competitive in the marketplace so that customers will come back to you again and again. It really just gives businesses a way to focus their efforts and a reason to focus their efforts in those areas.
[00:04:33] Valencia:
Okay. And you said Action Oriented SWOT. I’ve never heard of this. Is this like a SWOT? Why is it different?
[00:04:43] Felicia:
Well, a traditional SWOT really focuses primarily on recognizing those different areas, Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats and capturing those as part of the analysis. And a lot of times, it reflects what an organization already knows about itself.
An Action Oriented SWOT, on the other hand, allows you to go one step further. Instead of just identifying what you already know, you can translate those elements of the SWOT into actionable strategies so you’re able to extrapolate beyond what you know today to where you want to do in the future.
And those strategies are actionable.
Hence the name action oriented SWOT.
[00:05:20] Valencia:
Okay, perfect. So why did you gravitate towards this?
[00:05:27] Felicia:
I gravitated towards Action Oriented SWOTs, because they are so effective in helping to deliver the results that businesses are looking for.
- They provide fact based strategies. So they’re actually based on the situation that the company currently finds itself in. For example, it weighs in on how the company is doing in the marketplace, what’s trending, and puts all those factors together.
- It tends to focus on high impact opportunities. A lot of companies want to get away from incremental changes and really do something that makes a difference. This tool helps identify that.
- I would say the third is speed. There’s two ways that this analysis helps to deliver speed. First, it puts you in the position of working with your competencies, which delivers speed. Then, there the analysis itself. A lot of companies spend months to develop their strategy, and by the time they develop it, it’s out of date. So speed is a very important in the aspect of this tool. It’s something that can be developed fairly quickly to help identify those opportunities.
- And the fourth reason why I gravitate towards this type of SWOT is with the way the analysis is done. It helps develop a unifying strategy amongst those who are responsible for implementation. So they’re able to independently make decisions based on a common vision, they’re able to provide leadership at different levels of the organization, and most importantly, those resources can actually see themselves in the strategy and how they play a role.
[00:07:02] Valencia:
Okay. And this coverage is developed for a series on strategy. What all is covered on this particular topic?
[00:07:13] Felicia:
On the topic of Action Oriented SWOTs, we actually are focused on three well defined lessons.
Lesson 1: The first lesson is looking at the tool itself and assessing, allowing them learn to self-assess whether it’s the right tool for them, so they’ll be able to at the end of this lesson,
- articulate the criteria for success within their organization and
- to determine which type of SWOT analysis is right for them.
Lesson 2: In the second lesson, we focused on the insights. So if we recall, we were looking for the functional leaders to combine their insights with strategic thinking in order to develop effective strategies. So in lesson two, we’re focusing on those insights –
- gathering those insights based on what they can learn in the marketplace and what they know about themselves and then constructing a SWOT analysis,
- understanding what the distinctions are between, what is the strength, what is an opportunity. There are some cases where it can get confused, so it’s very important to put things in the right bucket and do some self-reflection on those findings.
Lesson 3: And the last lesson really helps to tie it together with blending in that strategic thinking. And at the end of this lesson, the learners will be able
- to devise strategies as part of creating their own Action Oriented SWOT to define strategic focus areas. After those strategies have been generated and then
- to reflect going back to the beginning on what their success measures were and if this meets their success criteria and really look inward at the benefits of using this tool.
[00:08:48] Valencia: Okay, great. So I have one final question for you. What has been your experience? How has your experience been with this tool?
[00:08:58] Felicia: This tool, Valencia, has been transformational. Each time I’ve used it. It never fails to really bring forward insights that the company didn’t expect. It does give you a number of different lenses to look at your organization through. And organizations really find out who they are and what will work best for them. And the most important thing is they’re solid about it. So there is no tendency or there’s less of a tendency for organizations to go in a direction and then question it. I find that they tend to adopt a strategy, approach it with enthusiasm, courage, and conviction, and actually deliver the gains that they’re looking to. So I’m very excited to be able to introduce this tool to a broader audience and help organizations see the value that it offers to the them.
[00:09:47] Valencia: Well, great. Thank you so much. I love your enthusiasm, and I look forward to learning more. Thank you.
[00:09:55] Felicia: And thank you for having me.
Photo: eBook
Photo:
Title: Foundations in Strategy for Commercial Business Leaders