When doing a post-mortem of
my last Comrades marathon, I was once again reminded of how important strategy is to virtually every task one tackles!
You may be wondering how on earth I can draw parallels between business strategy and running the Comrades Marathon. For those of you who have run this race before, I am sure that my story will sound very familiar.
It starts off by declaring your vision: to run the Comrades Marathon. Bearing in mind that only a few thousand people in the world have completed this race, this is no ordinary goal. You have now set your vision and you tell all your friends and family of the challenge that lies ahead. This piles on the pressure – you just have to make it work!
Despite the fact that I had run this race before, my next reaction was to panic – I am unfit and I need to start training immediately! Luckily, common sense prevailed, and I realised that before I blindly hit the road and start running, I needed to work out a plan. This plan needed to take into account my existing fitness levels and how much time I had left to get fitter. I needed to find out what was new on the running front – what had changed as far as the qualifying races and times were concerned, were there new diets to be considered, did I need to change the shoes I was using? These were only a few of the questions which raced through my mind and needed to be considered. Thankfully, although competitive, the road running community is very supportive and many people are happy to share their advice and experience on training programs and eating plans. And let’s be honest, it is always reassuring to know that others are experiencing the same doubts and challenges that you are facing. However, it was also important to realise when expert advice was needed and to consult with the required professionals when necessary on things such as injuries and training programs – you need to be humble and admit there is always stuff you just don’t know, no matter how experienced you think you may be on the subject.
Setting interim milestones was an important way for me to gauge whether or not I was ready to tackle the race. I also needed to be flexible and adjust the training program when life interfered, and very importantly, I needed to make sure that I did not get sick or injured in the 6 weeks leading up to race day. I wanted to make sure that I got a chance to run even if I had to compromise a bit on the training!
And just when I thought the planning, measuring and monitoring was behind me, I had to work out my plan to tackle Race Day! What pacing chart should I follow? What would I eat along the way? Where would I be meeting my support team? These were just some of the questions that I needed to plan for in order to ensure the best probability of success on race day. Many runners will know, that you don’t try anything new on race day – only tried and tested tactics are to be applied! At this late stage, I took personal advice from Lindsey Parry at the Comrades expo on how to pace myself throughout the race. (He and Brad Brown from Run Talk SA hosted a monthly Comrades webinar in the build up to Comrades which provided some very useful advice and tips for the race).
And so it was that with detailed planning, committed execution, great family support and a bit of luck, that I was able to complete my ninth Comrades Marathon in 10h45.
So at this stage you are probably asking: where are the parallels to business? Let me set it out in a manner which makes it more obvious:
- Establish a vision or future goal to be achieved.
- Assess the external environment in which you are operating and identify the important elements which could possibly impact on your business.
- Analyse the competitive landscape. Know who is doing what and how, and more importantly, who are the potential new entrants to the industry.
- Perform a comprehensive SWOT analysis with emphasis on identifying elements unique to your business.
- Confirm your approach to market and desirable timelines.
- Set milestones (targets or objectives) which can be used to benchmark your performance and confirm the progress being made. Work out the action plans needed to achieve these milestones.
- Identify positions (market share, skills, technology etc.) which need to be defended and outline your defensive actions in this regard.
- Identify the resources required to ensure successful implementation of the action plans.
- Extract and monitor the critical success factors which can jeopardise the entire strategic plan.
- Monitor progress and take corrective action timeously.
Strategy development is stressful and puts a lot of pressure on you, but it is very rewarding when you do achieve your goals. Success motivates you to go out and do more!