Sam Grayston

Tag: ideas

  • Of, by and for…why a co-operative should be a perfectly promotable business model

    The co-operative is currently going through a bit of a tough time which got me thinking back to some work I did a while ago to try to help express the uniqueness of a co-operative business model.

    One of the things I explored was about businesses having to excel in one, two or three aspects…most can’t do all three, but I believe a co-operative is uniquely placed to utilise this model…

    Businesses need to:

    • Be of the customer: a business that shares the values of its customers 
    • Be by the customer: a business that is shaped and run by its customers
    • Be for the customer: a business that is focused on an excellent customer experience

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  • The joker and the Devil’s advocate…introducing creativity and challenge to meetings

    A while ago, I did some work with my team thinking about what makes a team great, what kind of things we would see and hear and start to prioritise which aspects we wanted to work most on. We chose two things in particular:

    1. Creativity and innovation
    2. Constructively and safely challenge in meetings

    I went away and had a think about some ideas that might help facilitate these aspects during meetings. I came up with an idea I’m going to share here…

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  • A presentation is a creative entity in its own right

    OK, OK, so I haven’t kept to my promise to blog every couple of weeks throughout the strategy process. Sorry. I found that the actual doing got in the way of reflecting through this blog.

    Anyway, having completed a lot of the strategy work, I needed to present it to lots of different people, so today’s blog is about presentations.

    The most important mindset for presentation, I believe, is to think of your presentation as a creative entity in its own right. 

    A presentation is a creative entity in its own right

    It’s so important, I’ve said it twice.

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  • Two ideas for stakeholder feedback

    Before asking your stakeholders for feedback, work out what you need feedback on

    It’s been just over 2 weeks since my previous blog on the 9 and a half step strategic process which I’ve been following and part of the reason this blog is a little late is because of all of the stakeholder engagement and feedback I’ve been involved with and am preparing.

    This is also my first mobile blog-from my iPad, sat in a Manchester apartment between today and the next!

    Today’s blog is about stakeholder engagement and getting feedback. Working for a co-operative means that I’m not in short supply of stakeholders…many of which want a say in how the strategy I’m developing will come into being. I think I’ve learnt two really important things for stakeholder feedback:

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  • A nine (and a half) step strategic process

    Last time out was my seven starter points for strategic thinking and today I’m going to talk through the nine (and a half) step strategic process I’ve been following in my new role.

    Step 1 – Know yourself

    Sounds obvious, right? But this is where you’ve got to start. This isn’t about just knowing ‘I’m Sam and I’m an [fill in the blank]’. Knowing yourself is fundamental stuff – WHY do you do what you’re setting out to do with this strategy. Not just the stuff at the end of it (like selling stuff, engaging people, turning a profit) but what’s a the core. You might like to go back to the starter points to determine what you’re about.

    When you know what you stand for, you’ll be able to determine your vision and mission. Vision and mission differ – to have both, I think, is relatively important. Your vision is virtually unobtainable – it’s the utopia you are striving for. Your mission is focused on the length of the strategy (i.e. what do you see will happen in 3-5 years from now?).

    Your vision and mission will lead to loads of questions about ‘how will we know’? This is also where you need to establish some goals and targets.

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  • Seven starter points for strategic thinking

    FROM HERE TO THERE A STRATEGY IS A JOURNEY

    My first blog about my new position is about seven starter points I’ve had to consider before I even get going on the content of the strategy. Things I thought I’d share as I guess they apply to every strategy process.

    My first frame of reference for the strategy was to think about a journey. After all, a strategy sets out how you get from your starting point to somewhere else.

    To help us determine the direction of travel, I needed to consider seven key things that you might want to think about for your strategy. As with any journey, there a number of considerations before you travel:

    1. What’s the destination? Where are we going?
    2. What mode of transport should we use?
    3. How do we keep the travellers safe and happy?
    4. How do we keep the drivers happy?
    5. How do we have the best journey possible? It is the fastest, most economical, most scenic or shortest?
    6. Programming the SatNav or reading the map
    7. Observing the Highway Code

    Only when you know these things can we actually plan the route and get on our way.

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  • A year to change the world

    I return to blogging inspired and enthused…I’m going to try to blog every two weeks about my new position:

    Writing a communications and engagement strategy for The Co-operative Membership by December 2013.

    Clearly, I’m not going to talk about the details on here, but processes, ideas, thoughts, how it’s going and the like and share my revelations (or not!). The first being to think about why on earth an engagement strategy would even exist…

    In most other businesses, the idea of engagement is relatively simple – it drives trade. For our co-operative, engagement has to do more than that. Co-operative members engaging with a core set of values and principles does far more than just drive trade – it can lead to loyal ambassadors and advocates of a fantastic idea of members coming together to meet social, economic and cultural needs and aspirations. Awesome starting point then. In fact, it could be too huge! There are so many things that member engagement could encompass – I’ll need to focus on the core principles of what it means to be co-operative and the benefits that may bring to the business.

    Wish me luck!

  • Where there’s the will, there IS a way

    I believe that human beings have an extraordinary capacity to achieve incredible things. I think it’s mostly a question of will.

    EXPERIENCE

    There have been a few times through my working life where I’ve really gone for it. Given the space, time and inclination to work hard on a piece of work can produce some pretty big results or pieces of work relatively quickly. The kind of stuff that people say “wow, this must have taken over your life” has actually only taken me four days. Four friggin hard days. Four mentally exhausting days. Four days where I don’t do anything but the work at hand (no emails, calls, procrastinating). But no, it hasn’t taken over my life. Am I overdoing it or is there nothing that can’t be solved in a week (except perhaps building Rome)?

    A BIT SCARY

    To be honest, I sometimes find it a bit scary. Not scary like – “I’m going mad” or “what if I’ve spent four days producing crap”, but scary at the huge capacity of people. What if a person gave it their all ALL OF THE TIME? Think how much could be achieved. Think how good you could get at something.

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  • First one…keep it simple

    I’ve often toyed with the idea of blogging. The friendly little advice thing says:

    “tell readers why you started this blog and what you plan to do with it”

    …so I kind of have with the title – I plan to keep it simple.  (more…)