NOTES | Quote of the Week | "The game of business used to be like football: size mattered. Then it changed to basketball: speed and agility. Today, business is more like chess. Customer priorities change continually, and the signals given by these changes are vital clues to the next cycle of growth... -Adrian Slywotzky | Verse of the Week | “To everything, there is a season, and a time to every purpose under heaven. A time to plant and a time to harvest that; which is planted. A time to break down and a time to build up” –
Ecclesiastes 3: 1-8 | | Where to find us | Innov8 Academy
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www.innov8bookshop.biz | | Testimony Corner | God bless you. I am truly inspired by your articles that I receive through the innov8 mailing lists. In times that I have wanted to quit and just felt de-motivated, lacking interest in what I was doing I have found your articles to lift up my spirits giving me new energy and desire to achieve greatness where I am.
Keep up the good work!!!
Caroline Thank you so much for your inspiring words. I had lost all hope and thought my future was bleak. I was always tired and angry because I thought my life was over and nothing couldn’t be done ,but you through your issues told me otherwise. You gave me hope and I have started believing in myself again. I now know that without hope there is no life and that the last thing anyone should lose is hope. I thank God for your issues.
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Factor Reality into Your Strategy
|  Strategy is more than just a weekend retreat with a few flip charts, a SWOT analysis and then some scorecard or action plan at the end. The two most important questions that any strategy must answer are:
1. Where are we and where do we want go?
2. How will we get there and know when we have arrived?
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These questions look almost pedestrian in nature but we should never be fooled by their simplicity. Getting strategic clarity is hard leadership work it is not a mere democratic process. In and around most businesses there is so much complexity, so many changes such that plans that are crafted simply out of bravado and shallow consensus without realism are faltering.
Allow for questioning space
The highway to the failure of any organisation is to sanctify some sacred cows and hobby horses that are insulated from strategic scrutiny. To move forward turn your sacred cows into buggers or minced meat. Subject them to intense questioning for reality, performance and execution. While questions can make people uncomfortable, lack of questions is only a false comfort and a time bomb. Realities never go away because they have been ignored. No amount of pretending that you are okay could atone for a lack of strategic examination and treatment.
Create a faith factor
Most people look to the past to inform them of the future. In a world that is changing as fast as ours, the past is a poor reflection of the future. We will never go back to the so called good old days because those days do not exist and they can never be retrieved from the ever-evolving continuum of life. It is important to look at the facts. However it is also important to factor faith into our strategic plans. The future is waiting to be created and it is only eyes tempered with faith that see what does not yet exist and create it. Without faith, it is impossible to do anything that is impressive. Strategies without a faith and stretch factor just set up an organisation to recreate a poor and dusty version of its present form. Vision operates through faith. Look through the right eyes
It is easy to be so internally focused that we forget who the real boss is. The customer is the real boss. The customer can fire everyone in an organisation including suppliers, consultants and everyone else who is a stakeholder to that business. A story is told of a company that wanted to revolutionize its industry. It developed a strategy for a line of dog food. The company executives looked through the best menus and delicacies and came up with exciting tasty lines, that any sane human being would be impressed with. It subsequently develop a marketing strategy to support this inspiring strategy. The finance people also came up with robust budget books. All was set and the company had a big, hairy audacious goal: to be the undisputed market leader in dog food. There was only one problem. The dogs did not like the food! Processes, systems, strategies that ignore the customer are blind sighted and will only lead to frustration. A business without customers is a simple old boys club and it will not last for long. To factor reality into the business factor in the voice of the customer. The louder the voice of the customer, the more real the strategies are likely to be. Knowing what we now know
One of the most powerful and reality inducing question to ask is: “Knowing what we now know would we be in this business? Producing or selling this product in this way?” If the answer is no, it is time for change. Repetition never made anyone wiser if they are repeating the same old thing that no longer works. Josef Stalin once said that if a lie is repeated often enough the people will believe it. Well, perhaps that applies in politics but in strategy, repeating a lie often enough only leads to doom and gloom. Ignoring what you know is reality in the name of making corporate peace is betrayal of the organizational mission and the future. Popularity based on self-deception is stupidity of the worst kind. Factor reality into your strategies and strategic conversations and you will have clearer direction, better motivation and greater chances of strategic success. Innov8 Strategy Services offers balanced, innovative and fresh and interactive approaches and models to strategy, change management, teaming and workshopping and uses cutting edge facilitation methodologies and approaches to help clients mine value, create cohesion and power their value and customer innovation and organizational processes. If you would like us to discuss your next strategy workshop please send me an email: mil...@innov8.co.zw Committed to your greatness. Milton Kamwendo | DISTANCE LEARNING LCCI BUSINESS DIPLOMAS INTAKE | Acquire knowledge and embrace excellence from wherever you are with distance learning at Innov8 Academy. From marketing to finance, Innov8 Academy is offering an opportunity to excel in any course of your choice.
What it involves
-Studying from your comfortable zone
-Conduct your lectures at a convenient time
-Write your examinations when you are fully prepared
Diplomas available include:
Business Studies
Marketing
Accounting
Advertising
Public Relations
Selling and Sells
Internet Marketing
To register email/call Tafadzwa:
04754146,0776287455/email: tafa...@innov8.co.zw
Tel: 754146 Cell: 0776 287 455, 0734 121 561
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| INTERNATIONAL COMPUTER DRIVIN LICENCE: ENROLL NOW!! | International Computer Driving Licence (ICDL) ICDL is a world-wide qualification which enables people to increase their competence in computer skills. Modules covered under this include: Basic Concepts of IT, Using the computer and managing files, Word Processing, Spreadsheets, Databases, Presentation, and Information and Communication. Registrations in progress: Classes start every Monday! | NEW ICDL AUTOMATED | Innov8 is now providing ICDL automated testing offering more convenience and faster delivery and instant results. Automated testing also comes with Pre Assessment tests that allow one to gauge their knowledge and skill levels so that they can start at the appropriate level saving time and money. To find out more email: in...@innov8.co.zw or call 0776 287 455 | social networking | Add us as a friend on facebook and get to meet and network with potential clients, mentors and friends:
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Innov8motivatin | Or Join Zimbabwe's most exciting social networking site at innov8motivation.ning.com, for people with passion for great goals. | TOP 5 BOOKS In the Bookshop: |     
Alignment: Robert S. Kaplan, David P. Norton
Most organisations consist of multiple business and support units, each populated by highly trained, experienced executives. But often the efforts of individual units are not coordinated, resulting in conflicts, lost opportunities, and diminished performance Robert S. Kaplan and David P. Norton argue that the responsibility for this critical alignment lies with corporate headquarters.|
In this book, the authors apply their revolutionary Balanced Scorecard management system to corporate-level strategy, revealing how highly successful enterprises achieve powerful synergies by explicitly defining corporate headquarters' role in setting, coordinating, and overseeing organizational strategy.
Based on extensive field research in organisations worldwide, "Alignment" shows how companies can build an enterprise-level Strategy Map and Balanced Scorecard that clearly articulate the "enterprise value proposition": how the enterprise creates value above that achieved by individual business units operating alone. Get yours now All these book available on Innov8 Online Bookshop |
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