Establishing the Source of Truth in Your Business Strategy

Let me state the obvious. In legal cannabis and psychedelics (I’m talking about you Oregon and Colorado), the fact that every state has to individually stand up an entirely disparate supply chain due to federal prohibition, including no interstate commerce, is highly inefficient.

BUT, in the messiness is beauty– beauty, because it’s hard and people that purposely take on hard challenges are MY people.

So the question becomes how do businesses execute on growth and build strategy in such a dynamic and disparate environment?

If you know me, or if we’ve worked together recently, you know that I believe the answer is a deliberate pairing of data, creativity and the courage to lead. I find creativity and courage have more in common and use different skills than the establishment of strategically useful data. So, today I’ll opine on intentionally taking steps to identify data through analysis and assessment as part of a strategy building process.

What do I mean by data? What I’m talking about is establishing a common fact base- a truth we can all agree on.

Facts.

Data can be bucketed into 2 categories, internal and external.

Internal data is your company’s financials, it’s people/skills/strengths, it’s products/services, it’s core processes and competencies. You get the idea.

External data are customer trends, economic trends, competitors, financial/equity markets, government policy and regulations, reports from your favorite data company, technology– it goes on.

The foundational step of building a common fact basis in strategy planning creates a mutually agreed upon understanding and assumption of the world in which we are playing to win.

From data, the seeds of creativity and courage can take off.