- Registration For December Diet Starts 2012-10-02
- Mandatory Continuous Professional Development (MCPD) Workshop 2012-11-15
- Strategists’ Dinner 2012-11-23
- Accelerated Membership Seminar 2012-10-20
UPCOMING EVENTS
What Is Your Survival Strategy?2013-02-23 10:16:30
A Presentation Delivered at the South-East/South-South Induction Ceremony of the Institute Of Strategic Management, Nigeria (ISMN) on Saturday 23rd February, 2013.
Lecture objective: To make inductees think outside the box of the professional certification, leave their comfort zones and face the realities of life with the knowledge of strategy they have acquired.
All protocols observed.
I am privileged to stand before you today
I bring greetings from the management and staff of the Institute
The topic of my lecture today is a question that needs a reply before the end of this induction;
WHAT IS YOUR SURVIVAL STRATEGY?
When you leave the four walls of this venue, you will be left with just two things: you, and the knowledge you acquired from your training or study of strategic management, only.
You will be left with the definition which says, strategy is a means to an end. You will be left with the definition; strategy is concrete planning to achieve competitive edge. You will be left with the definition; strategy is a rational and logical means to an objective. In spite of the diverse definitions of strategy, I ask, WHAT IS YOUR SURVIVAL STRATEGY?
It pleases me to inform you that the corporate industry is a red ocean, an ocean of vampires, fierce zombies and cannibals at heart.
It is also an ocean where your skill or competence is not new to anyone, your values can be gotten from other people too, and the competition is an eternal meter dash.
The corporate Industry is an ocean where your subordinate can overnight be your boss, and you may be subjected to serve the mediocre way.
So I ask you again, WHAT IS YOUR SURVIVAL STRATEGY?
You were taught that strategic management is a continuous process where executives engage themselves in continuous rethinking and auditing of themselves for peak performance and for the actualization of the organization's objective, but I would love to correct your school of thought that the continuous rethinking is not just for the executives alone, but for everybody in the organization, from the gate man to the CEO, and as strategists, you must deliver. I ask you again, WHAT IS YOUR SURVIVAL STRATEGY?
To those that sprout from an impoverished background; you think after this certification, you and your family will know no lack?
We will love to know, WHAT IS YOUR SURVIVAL STRATEGY?
I define a survival strategy as a logical and/or rational pattern that is implanted and implemented to continuously overcome life's challenges so as to gain sustainability in one's chosen environment, in turn, gain financial peace.
A survival strategy helps you manage the expectations of your life’s stakeholders, and also, balance their conflicts.
A survival strategy helps you eliminate potential challenges that hinder the achievement of your success.
A survival strategy help you compare yourself with the best in your level hence show you the need to improve performance so as to stay above competition.
A survival strategy makes crystal your SWOT; helps you overcome your weaknesses using your strengths, shows you the opportunities surrounding you so as to utilize them, and inform you that your threats should be buried as soon as possible and your problems, taken care of one after another.
It is imperative to inform you that strategists don't fail. They fall but they get back up.
They don't cry when faced with challenges, they give a bold smile; hey! They are not proud, it is just that they understand perspective intelligence; they are enriched with tactics.
The world tells you life is good. Faith proclaims life is good. You get a 'life is good' notion in the corporate industry and its equivalent industries, so, you admire people you are not supposed to admire because, you see the well knotted tie perhaps, the fancy cars they drive and the well built houses they live in, and with respect to the aforementioned, you studied banking and finance, computer science, political science, may be industrial and labor relations or physics and the likes so you can come in and enjoy life.
My soon to be strategist, let's face reality, life is not ‘LG’ at all. Life is hard! It is ‘LH’, and it takes a person that has a survival strategy to scale through the hurdles of life.
So I ask, WHAT IS YOUR SURVIVAL STRATEGY?
Value makes sense, but it works with relationship power.
Relationship power is imperative to unlocking the opportunities of the corporate industry but if you don't have value, you will be locked out of the industry soon, in-spite of your relationship power. So get both!
Competence makes sense but it works with the application of the right tool and it thrives in the right environment. So get sense!
But strategy stands on its own cognizance and can be liken to wisdom. So put on strategic thinking!
Sun Tzu wrote, in the Art of war; people should not be unfamiliar with strategy, those who understand it will survive, those who do not understand it will perish.
If you don't survive in life, the certificate you will collect soonest, becomes a paper.
So I ask for the last time, WHAT IS YOUR SURVIVAL STRATEGY?
Thank you.
08180929690
BB Pin: 2965D0C6, patrick@ismng.org
All rights reserved © 2013 | Institute Of Strategic Management, Nigeria