A few years ago, we spent a great deal of time at 3Pillar talking about who we are, what we do, and how we do it. Though we had always known and agreed on 80% of the answers, I’ve found that the 20% can really shape your business and provide strategic direction.
There’s a radical balance that must be struck between getting these answers right and driving these efforts to completion. There’s a tendency to seek perfection and wordsmith to death. On the other hand, significant thought does need to be put developing your core ideology, strategy, and messaging.
Many articles have been written on core values, purpose, mission, and other ideological and strategic concepts, and I don’t intend to rehash them here. (If you’d like to do some reading, I always recommend HBR.) Here are some tips that I would offer in regards to these efforts:
- Focus on the meat and potatoes
- Keep things simple
- Be explicit
- Consider them living documents
- Be proportionate to your maturity
To read about each of these items, see the post I wrote in 2010.