What does it take to develop a sound business strategy? Kevin Garton, President of Context Summits, and former Chief Operating Officer of Context Capital Partners, walks us through what it takes and just as important, the misconceptions many people have around what a strategy actually is.

1. Developing An
Effective Strategy
Choices, Communication,
& Iteration

2. #StrategicMomentumPodcast

3. Developing Your Strategy
1. It’s a Comprehensive Strategic Planning
Process - A Marathon, Not a Sprint
○ The process starts with research and analysis, and
that can go on for months.
○ Data must reflect a comprehensive viewpoint
internally and externally.
○ Go outside of the organization and interview
people externally.
○ It needs to reflect an outside-in, inside-out
perspective. This insight should be collected on an
ongoing basis.
October 2018 Developing and Effective Strategy with Kevin Garton | Flywheel Associates 3

4. Strategy = Making choices that enable
you to be competitive or have a
competitive advantage in the market
that you decide to operate in.
4

5. Myths and Misconceptions
Strategy IS NOT your vision or mission
• Mission and vision provide direction, but don’t provide the
details that you need to encompass a complete strategy. This is
an extremely common mistake.
Strategy IS NOT best practices
• Best practices can be part of the strategy.
Strategy IS NOT a plan
• The plan is the set of tactics used to implement the strategy.
October 2018 Developing and Effective Strategy with Kevin Garton | Flywheel Associates 5

6. Strategy Development: The
Challenges
• Decision-making: Inherently
easier to focus on plans and
tactics. Most organizations skip
the critical step of thinking
through choices.
• Ownership: Many orgs lack a role
specifically responsible for
creating, communicating, and
implementing the strategy.
October 2018 Developing and Effective Strategy with Kevin Garton | Flywheel Associates 6

7. Developing Your Strategy
The “How”

8. Developing Your Strategy
2. Go Top Down, Bottoms Up, & Across
○ Strategy development should be top down, and
then bottom up.
○ You're going to miss something if you approach it
only from the entry-level or the mid-level or top
level.
○ You need to gather insights throughout the entire
organization.
October 2018 Developing and Effective Strategy with Kevin Garton | Flywheel Associates 8

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10. Developing Your Strategy
3. Leverage Frameworks
○ Frameworks help create structure, mutual
understanding and alignment.
○ Ex: SWOT analysis, Point of Parity/Point of
Difference Model
○ Consider a Venn diagram: outline the intersection
of what you are passionate about, what you are
great at and how you make money.
October 2018 Developing and Effective Strategy with Kevin Garton | Flywheel Associates 10

11. Developing Your Strategy
4. Start Small and Iterate
○ You need to constantly iterate on the strategy by
examining the outcomes, analyzing the results, and
repeating the research analysis process again.
○ Think of doing a pilot – build something small,
deploy it in a controlled environment and see how
it works.
October 2018 Developing and Effective Strategy with Kevin Garton | Flywheel Associates 11

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13. Executing Your Strategy
What it Takes

14. Executing Your Strategy
Intellectual Honesty
• Be realistic. Having the verbal or written
intention to do something doesn't
necessarily mean you have the capability,
resources, or the know-how to do it.
Leadership
• Appoint a strategy leader. If there is no
one with a holistic understanding of the
strategy and the ability to communicate it,
you won’t make progress.
October 2018 Developing and Effective Strategy with Kevin Garton | Flywheel Associates 14

15. Executing Your Strategy
Alignment
• Make sure that you're communicating the
process and the plan. If people don't
understand the strategy, they can't buy
into the strategy and it will never be
executed correctly.
Feedback
• Think of it as a circular process where you
research, plan, get feedback, implement
and analyze your activity which will lead
you back to potentially need to do more
research.
October 2018 Developing and Effective Strategy with Kevin Garton | Flywheel Associates 15

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17. Tune in to the STRATEGIC MOMENTUM PODCAST to hear from more guests like Kevin!
ABOUT KEVIN GARTON
Kevin Garton is President of Context Summits a
leading alternative investment specialist firm.
He uses his multidisciplinary expertise to help
Context Capital Partners redefine their
business strategy – and put the right people in
the right roles to make this new strategy
happen.
Learn more at:
contextsummits.com
Connect with Kevin:
LinkedIn or Twitter

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