Strategy reference · PDF
Strategy Cheat Sheet
A practical reference for making strategy hold up in the real organisation.
£20, including VAT
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Why Strategies Stall
Most strategies are good enough to succeed. They stall on the way from intent to action: in approval paths built for a different plan, in trade-offs nobody chose, and in the gap between the people who set direction and the people who deliver it.
The Strategy Cheat Sheet is an 11-page reference for founders, leaders and management teams who set strategy and want it to survive contact with the business. Each of its seven sections gives a core principle, key insights, diagnostic questions and a short worked example.
Start Where You Are
A navigation page at the front points you to the right section for the work in front of you.
Designing a new strategy
Working out why one has stalled
Making a big decision
Running a quarterly review
What's Inside
When strategy meets the organisation
How decision rights, approvals and incentives shape the outcome as much as the thinking does.
Hidden costs and trade-offs
Strategy debt, the priority-as-filter test, and choosing your trade-offs instead of defaulting into them.
Three ways strategy plays out
Recognising which one is happening in your business.
The translation gap
Why strategy gets lost between layers, and how to design the handover.
Who holds the connection
Ownership of the strategic process, and why it suits a generalist.
Evolution, not revolution
Reviews that check the plan still fits the business before measuring progress against it.
Three essential questions
Where decisions really sit, where work slows down, and what future costs today's decisions are building in.
PDF, 11 pages, A4.
Who It's For
Founders and leadership teams in businesses of up to 100 people, who set strategy and need it to hold up once it meets the rest of the organisation.
About the Author
Written by Ady Coles, founder of Mantage Ltd, a fractional strategy and operations partner for UK SMEs. It draws on Mantage's published writing on strategy and organisational debt, and on running Mantage's own quarterly strategy review.
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Licensed for use by the purchaser and their organisation. Please don't redistribute.