The Right Type of Strategy

When reading “Your Strategy Needs a Strategy” I couldn’t help but to think of the company I work for the whole time and really think about the type of strategy we posses. I know we have a few people who are our strategy analysts but since I’m not in that department I never put much thought into it. Reading each type of strategy I thought of the different ways it could possibly work for us, but when I read the visionary type I knew that was the best fit. I work for a Stop Loss Insurance company and on the day to day we are predicting and analyzing risk, so it makes sense for us to have a visionary type strategy. We are used to seeing risk and although we might not follow the path that we have laid out we still go for it because we set out for that path regardless of the outcome. The stop-loss insurance world is not always predictable but with the tools and technology we have today, we are more predictable than other industries and also more malleable. My industry cannot always predict what types of claims or catastrophic events that will happen that we will have to cover but all stop-loss insurances companies face that same problem. Our strategy is more molded into something that is an advantage for us over our competitors. The extra coverages and perks we offer to be a step above the rest. After reading the article it makes more sense to me on why it is so important to have the correct type of strategy chosen for your industry to be successful.

The article “The Real Value of Strategic Planning” then had me thinking if a meeting lasting 10 to 30 actually happens to discuss our strategy. The different parts of the meeting and the individuals involved make sense based on the article and the importance but I’m curious if it truly happens that way. I believe a strategic planning review is very important in going over opportunities, challenges and big decisions that need discussed between the executives of the company. Moving on to the article on vision, it made me think, do they have certain meetings that last several days discussing core values and ideology? Or is that only for strategy evaluations?  Core values and core purpose of a company should be important to you as an employee who works there. I want to know that the core ideology matches what I agree with and I am working towards the values and purposes daily to achieve the best for my company.