Video recording of strategic planning facilitator Bruce Withrow explaining the Hambrick Strategy Diamond Model. Recorded during a virtual strategic planning session for a client. Two minute recording.

Strategy Diamond Video Transcript

You need to be able to describe your strategy, and you do that by answering five questions. And the five questions are; “Where are you going to be active?”

So this could be in terms of geography, or in terms of clinical modalities, or in terms of size of client etc. Anything that you can use to kind of define we want this one, and not that one, are the ways to answer that question.

And then the second question is around vehicles. So “How are you going to get there?”

Are you going to do it on your own, are you going to in source, are you going to outsource, are you going to have joint ventures, are you going to have strategic partnerships, etc.? So those are all vehicles that allow you to get to that area that you intend to be active, that you intend to compete in.

The next question is, “How are you going to differentiate yourself?”.

There’s a lot of other people offering services, either in direct competition with you or in in-direct competition with you –they are taking care of the same problem via another means. So why are people going to pick you? And you need to be really clear about why you’re going to win and then build up the capacity that you actually are going to win.

But then you still have a couple more things to think about. One is, well, “How are you going to make money at this?”

And make sure you get an appropriate return for your efforts, because you need to fund going forward even, even as a not for profit.

And then finally, you ask, Okay. Well, now, now that we’ve figured all of that out. “What’s going to be the speed and sequence of our moves?”

Because as you go forward. There’s going to be a lot of things changing. There are going to be new initiatives, things that you need. And what I have found is that it makes sense to answer the first four questions and then sit back and a little. Let a little time elapse and then come back and look at it again. And then that puts you in a position to say, okay, well, here’s what we need to do. And by the way, this is a prerequisite for that and we need to do this first and this other thing can wait.

So that’s all the Strategy Diamond is.

Please Note: We are not associated with Donald Hambrick or James Fredrickson the creators of the Strategy Diamond in any way.

You can download a copy of their AME article “Are you sure you have a strategy?” for personal use here https://www.uio.no/are you sure you have a strategy.pdf (This is not a paid link.)

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Do you want to explore how the Strategy Diamond and other strategic planning tools can help your organization? We can help with strategic planning process design, virtual facilitation and reporting. Please contact us today. The initial consultation is always free.

You can use our Contact Form or call Bruce Withrow at 416 461 0715 or email bwithrow@facilitators.com