Much has been written on strategic business planning. Each year, countless seminars, workshops, TED Talks, conferences, summits, symposiums, books, articles, and training videos seek to extend our understanding of what it is, how it works, and why a company needs a written strategic business plan. The accepted wisdom focuses on measurement, metrics, dashboards, scorecards, etc., often with the recommendation that if it’s not measurable, then it shouldn’t be done. 

This article offers a different view on business strategy. That is, great strategy has a lot to do with a company’s strategic soul. Discover why your company may not be living up to its full potential until or unless it knows its strategic soul, which is not especially measurable. This article also elaborates on how construction financial managers (CFMs) can more effectively tap into their company’s intangible, yet important, organizational soul.

Meet Soulman

John Solberg leads Kraus-Anderson Construction Company’s (KA’s) Multi-Family Housing Market Sector Team. As we are both cycling fans, we were comparing notes recently about road bikes of the pedal variety.

“Soulman,” I said, using his nickname, “the key for me has been finding a ride that fits me both physically and mentally. A great bike has a lot of intangibles.” He agreed, then added, “Everything about the bicycle comes into play. Not just the frame and components, but, the feel, the design, even the history of the manufacturer – its DNA, story, vision, and soul as a company; how it feels when you are on it.”

“It all comes together,” I piped in. “That’s when it feels like my bike, like an extension of my legs. That’s also when I can push myself more, test my mettle, and bring my riding up a notch; it’s when my bike feels so right for me that I want to motivate the bike, and myself, to another level.”

Now, before you conclude that we are just two roadies who paid far too much for 17 pounds of carbon fiber and high-performance components, let’s unpack this. Soulman and I agree that a great bicycle has intangibles. He even said the soul of the maker comes into play.

Soul?

For the past 30 years, John has been immersed in all things tangible – critical path scheduling, resource allocation, trade subcontractor management, analysis of architect plans and specifications, QA/QC, owner/developer contracts, meticulous financial recordkeeping, field safety metrics, progress reports, etc. If anyone would understand that a bicycle is just frame and components, it would be a construction project manager. But, here he was waxing eloquent on the virtues of the corporate soul.

This got me thinking about my professional experiences, including more than 230 strategic business planning projects that I have facilitated, documented, and helped to implement over the past 30 years in the architecture, engineering, construction, and real estate (A/E/C/RE) industry; countless interviews with top executives; primary and secondary market research; hundreds of Voice of the Customer interviews; dozens of offsite leadership retreats; the many all-employee strategic plan rollout meetings delivered for clients; and efforts we take at KA to achieve strategic focus.

These experiences provided such tangible results as top-line sales growth, improved gross project margins, improved pre-tax profit, improved field safety, better proposal win percentage rates, improved employee retention rates, and improved customer satisfaction metrics.

But, what about the intangibles? Where did just good leadership come in, despite the lack of metrics? How did strategic business planning make my clients and their stakeholders feel?

Well, it made those associated with the planning that I led feel confident, informed, focused, proactive, united, secure, excited, and special; as if together they were accomplishing something distinctive. Like they were bringing their company to the next level.