• Use a Red Team/Blue Team approach

• War games or simulations

• Research – both cursory and deep, (see scenario planning tool )

• Gathering intelligence from the “street”(see section 7)

• Ongoing conversations with customers

• Building a network of thought partnerships

The top executive can begin by assembling a cross-functional, multi-level task force of key people: managers, influential thinkers and the informal opinion leaders in the organization, as well as appropriate outside stakeholders.

(The sole proprietor can pull together a group of the best available thinkers.)

The goal of this group should be an analysis of your company and your markets as if you were a start-up business looking for a game-changing strategy.

One key tactic is to use Red Team/ Blue Team techniques and war-gaming simulations to ensure fresh assessments of familiar perspectives.

Furthermore, the work of these teams is best facilitated by an outside agent who has no stake in the status quo, who isn’t going to fall in line when the boss speaks, and who can nurture true challenges to old assumptions.

The work of this company wide strategy group is to listen (an often-difficult task for the members of executive teams).

Their work involves inviting conversations with customers, market watchers and those who come to the market with a different (non-traditional) point of view.

Sales reps and others who work in the field should be interviewed to gather hints, hunches and intuitions about what’s being said out there.

Their work includes brainstorming to put the company’s marketplace reputation clearly into words.

One’s identity is demonstrated by what one stands for over time. It can be seen in the choices one makes and in the purposes one pursues.

These elements of a business are clearly observable and can be deliberately considered from an internal perspective, as well as by observations in the external world.

Just as with people, there often is a gap between how we are seen as an enterprise versus how we see ourselves.

Considering the ego investment of the executives in their business, you begin to appreciate the fact that these assessments can only be well done through a concentrated effort.

Other multilevel, cross-functional work groups should gather information on changing customer tastes and preferences.

They should be able to highlight game-changing ideas that are within the realm of the company.

They should identify key business drivers in the marketplace and identify evolving, emerging or disruptive developments that are on the horizon.

They should also be able to articulate how they would do business differently if they were a start up company with your current resources.

Their feedback around these and other relevant issues then sets the stage for reaffirming your purpose and clearly expressing it in your business idea.

These steps lay the foundation for the formation of a network of thought partnerships across the company. This network will strengthen collaborative efforts in each of the other recommended steps.

Using Your Business Idea To Make Sense of Your Markets:

Take what you have learned from your assessment of the marketplace and interpret it against your fundamental business purpose.

Your organization considers what you (as a company) have to offer that you believe will create a favorable value proposition for both you and your customers.

It is particularly difficult for companies that have been in business for a generation or more to revisit their business idea and objectively examine it in the current business climate.

It is also difficult for companies that have historically been successful, because success often breeds a reluctance to move away from a once winning formula.

Understanding what promises hold tangible value for customers and appreciating how to deliver on those expectations can lead to a significant competitive advantage.

The responsibility for analyzing your business idea does not rest with the individual sitting in the captain’s chair, but rather with the complex, interdependent, networked system that is (or can be) your company.

Action Steps: Here’s a summary of what you’ll find in this sub-section’s recommendations:

• Scenario planning initiatives

• Brand equity workshops

• Developing and working from a consistent “teachable point of view” as a practical frame of reference

A highly productive way to start a broad organizational conversation about the business idea is to engage people in the process of scenario planning.

Companies use scenario planning as an aid in anticipating multiple possible futures (See van der Heijden, 1996).

In order to articulate possible future scenarios, one has to have a very clear idea as to the organization’s fundamental purpose---its reason for being. Collins and Porras (1996) have elegantly considered this issue.

They use examples of firms like 3M and Mary Kay to help illustrate their points. The Mary Kay Company is a marvelous example of a firm which has shaped itself in such a way as to totally dedicate its resources to supporting its fundamental business idea.

Well done, scenario planning does more than imagine future possibilities. It writes stories about possible futures that connect people across the enterprise.

It identifies intermediate signs, occurrences or manifestations to watch for that will indicate which one of several possible futures are beginning to emerge.

It allows people familiar with the scenarios to anticipate developing events.

Scenarios create a shared picture of the implications of future trends and provide a framework for the company to anticipate effectively and adjust to changing conditions.

For example, there were several companies located in the Twin Towers that had multiple scenario plans in place which allowed them to successfully adjust to the tragedy of “911.”

Once you and your key people have referenced your business intelligence against your core purpose, you are in a position to translate that into a brand promise and to communicate that promise in stories that capture the imaginations of diverse audiences.