When we’re talking about the strategic framework for a conscious business, it is similar in many respects to the core strategic considerations of any traditional business. And, at the same, it differs greatly in many aspects, especially the organizing criteria that represent the heart and purpose of a conscious business and embellish the traditional strategic approach.
In this series, I’ll present six essential conscious business strategies that you can overlay on the strategic foundation of traditional business to imbue a conscious approach into your thinking. Before I begin to overlay the six essential conscious business strategies, let’s take a step back to set the stage with an explanation of the basic strategic framework for any business.
A comprehensive strategic foundation directs and supports business success over the short- and long-term. At the highest level, this foundation consists of three keystones - a business strategy, an operational strategy, and a transformational strategy. Together, they cover the spectrum of what business leaders need in order to respond effectively and thrive in these times of our fast-paced,
VUCA world. Let me provide a quick description of each to give us a level playing field.
Business Strategy - Your "Game Plan": It's about figuring out where you want to take your business in the big picture, who your customers are, and how you'll stand out from the competition. Think of it as your roadmap for where you're headed and how you plan to grow, and how you’ll align resources and efforts across your organization.
Traditionally, it includes conducting regular SWOT analyses (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats), setting clear and measurable objectives for the business, and ensuring alignment with the organization's mission and values. Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) for business strategy might include market share growth, revenue growth rate, customer acquisition cost, and return on investment (ROI).
Operational Strategy - Your "Playbook for Efficiency": It focuses on the day-to-day running of your business. It's all about making sure things run smoothly, efficiently, and cost-effectively, from producing your product or service to delivering it to your customers, and streamlining your administrative system. This strategy attends to the internal processes of your organization to execute the vision set forth by the business strategy through practical, day-to-day actions and improvements. Traditionally, KPIs include how efficiently your people and systems work, inventory turnover rates, and customer satisfaction scores.
Transformational Strategy - Your "Blueprint for Change": This guides you when it’s time to make big, fundamental changes to adapt to new markets, technologies, internal crises, or other challenges. This strategy is about reinventing parts of your business to carve new markets, stay ahead, or to bounce back stronger when faced with major shifts. It's a comprehensive approach that looks at changing the very DNA of your organization to ensure long-term sustainability and growth.
KPIs in a transformational strategy might include innovation metrics (e.g., the percentage of new product sales as part of total sales), employee engagement scores, market penetration rates for new ventures (how well new products are doing in the market), and financial metrics that show how well the business is doing after big changes.
You should always have business and operational strategies in place. The transformational strategy may be developed when the time comes for a big shift in your business (and that time will come sooner than you think).
But, here’s the catch… the traditional approach to creating these essential strategic keystones is insufficient to the needs of a conscious business. This approach falls flat because it focuses primarily on the transactional and functional aspects of the business without deliberately imbuing the qualities and commitments to your purpose, positive impact, conscious leadership, co-creative culture, meaningful customer relationships, and innovative spirit.
We’ve witnessed many conscious leaders struggle to integrate the old approach with the new way of thinking about business as a force for good. I propose that what’s needed is an overhaul of the strategic keystones to include more than the transactional, functional goals and KPIs.
As one of our favorite geniuses, Albert Einstein, famously said, “You cannot solve a problem with the same mind that created it.” Unless we change the tools we use and systems we design to implement our businesses, we’ll continue to find ourselves being tugged backward into the old mindset. Instead, let’s
change the tool that guides our strategic thinking, and thus change the game.
This blog collection proposes a new way of doing your strategic thinking, a new way of imbuing your conscious approach into the very fabric of your business. I’ll present six essential strategic components that need to be added to up-level the traditional keystones to enable you to permeate conscious business principles and objectives into everything you do.
The six strategies of conscious business I’ll cover in this collection are:
- Balance Profit and Purpose
- Unlock Innovation
- Foster Customer Connections
- Nurture a Co-Creative Culture
- Cultivate Conscious Leadership
- Amplify Your Positive Impact
We’ll begin first with Balance Profit and Purpose, the next blog in this series. If you’d like to be notified when the next post drops,
click here and we’ll send you a quick notification.
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