Some strategies work silently, some are visible and vocal, some are explicit, some implicit, some active, others passive. Some strategies drive your business forward, some, perhaps inadvertently, hold it back. It’s unlikely that you would call the inadvertent, sub-, or even un-conscious, consistent behaviours “strategies” yet when they act in all regards like every other strategy that you carefully developed and refined, then in reality that is what they are.

Occasionally visible and agreed, collectively determined strategies can be undone by the unconscious ones, doomed to fail before they even get traction, so it’s important to find ways to surface what your underlying attitudes, approach, values and habitual behaviours are creating, strategically in your business. Like an invisible disease, the best medicine is an early diagnosis from analysis of the symptoms.

In business, strategies exist only for a few reasons, although those are often complicated by the things that businesses do, the way they express those things and the way that they can internalise the importance of that particular strategy. Yet, at the heart of most strategies I usually find they fall into one of two of these simple ideas:

• Growing the business financially (“More money”)
• Becoming more efficient (“More time”)
• Wellbeing and emotional resilience (“Less Stress”)

Over the next few weeks, I am going to be looking at why strategy is especially important in owner-led businesses. I’ll touch on some unconscious strategies that I see holding businesses back from optimal performance and their typical symptoms, as well as how to make sure your business is immune. I’ll also highlight the steps to building a great strategic decision-making framework for your business.

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