Tuesdays with Michael: Core Activities Differentiate You and Are Rooted in Your Core Purpose

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By Michael Gidlewski

Core Activities differentiate you. They’re rooted in your Core Purpose and they’re essential to your Strategic Positioning. They comprise the excellence that makes you a leader.

These are the must-do activities. You want to allocate resources to them. But it is not easy to know which products, services, and activities are Core and which are not. It’s especially hard for executives, because most have a very difficult time taking an objective eye to the work around them.

You started your enterprise. You added new products and services. You built your team. Everything that’s happening seems important or unavoidable. If any of it stopped, there would be dire consequences. However, the decision to stop activities, or discontinue products and services that have outlived their usefulness is one of the keys to strategic leadership.

It often seems like this is where your plans crash into reality. You want your Core Purpose to cascade through your Strategic Priorities so you can focus everyone on Core Activities.

But how? What do you change in your current organization to make it more effective for the future?

Here’s a technique for seeing things more objectively. Ask yourself this question when you’re evaluating the products and services in your portfolio, and the work done in your enterprise:

  • Is this activity/offering important for our long-term success in our industry?

Taking the long view helps you identify the essentials and separate them from the “important” or “unavoidable” non-essentials that you want to phase out. It also helps you identify what we call “Contextual Activities,” which are jobs that support your long-term success, but that might not pass the next test.

You’ll discover which activities are truly Core Activities by asking yourself:

  • Does this activity/offering meaningfully differentiate us in the mind of the customer?

When the answer is “Yes,” then that activity/offering has strategic value. It’s a Core Activity. The excellence you bring to it makes you a leader. When your customer experiences it, it opens a relationship with them that should bring you long-term benefits and more customers.

If you want to build your competitive edge over your competition, click here to begin your free trial of ResultsBI’s One-Page Strategic Plan. There is no obligation and no risk, just a jumpstart on your journey to success!

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Michael Gidlewski is President of West Chester-based Achievement Unlimited, Inc., as well as a growth catalyst and motivational speaker. He works with motivated business owners and entrepreneurs to clearly define the elements of what they dearly want their businesses and lives to look like, then helps them connect all the moving parts that make up those visions to consistent action and habits. Michael can be reached at 610-793-6609 or via e-mail at michael@achievable.com.

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