“In peace, prepare for war. In war, prepare for peace”
– Sun Tzu, ancient chinese military strategist
Managing a business in a climate of growth isn’t the same as getting things done when the going gets tough. But even in times of crisis, it’s crucial to keep the horizon in sight, as future performance is born today.
Managing execution in difficult times demands a different approach. the performance factory has done extensive research on the topic, together with the Vlerick Leuven Gent business school. If you missed it or want to re-read the report, you can find it here.
Carlos Guevara, who’s helping me with the extended version of strategy Execution Heroes, wrote an interesting article about the same topic from a MENA — Middle East North Africa — perspective.
The key points Carlos makes in his article are:
In times of crisis, everything is different. Your customers may stop buying from you, your banks may stop lending you money, and suddenly the opportunities you had to grow your business collapse one by one.
The execution framework you used in better times is probably not enough during hard times. You need to step up in 4 different areas:
- Your strategy needs to talk to your budget
- You need to improve your cost/benefit analysis and project management capabilities
- Don’t stop linking individuals goals to performance and reward systems
- Monitor what matters — and do it more often
Interested reading the whole article? Follow this link.
