Rich Horwath - Deep Dive: The Proven Method for Building Strategy, Focusing Your Resources, and Taking Smart Action

T HE P ROVEN M ETHOD for B UILDING S TRATEGY,
F OCUSING Y OUR R ESOURCES, and T AKING S MART A CTION

RICH HORWATH

Published by Greenleaf Book Group Press
Austin, Texas
www.greenleafbookgroup.com

Copyright 2009 Rich Horwath

All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or
transmitted by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording,
or otherwise, without written permission from the publisher.

The terms Deep Dive Learning System, Strategic Thinking Assessment,
StrategyPrint, and StrategySphere System are trademarks registered with the
United States Patent and Trademark Office and are owned by the author.

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For ordering information or special discounts for bulk purchases, please contact
Greenleaf Book Group LLC at PO Box 91869, Austin, TX 78709, 512.891.6100.

Design and composition by Greenleaf Book Group LLC
Cover design by Greenleaf Book Group LLC

Publisher's Cataloging-In-Publication Data
(Prepared by The Donohue Group, Inc.)

Horwath, Rich.

Deep dive : the proven method for building strategy, focusing your
resources, and taking smart action / Rich Horwath. -- 1st ed.

p. : ill., charts; cm.

Includes index.

ISBN: 978-1-60832-033-2

1. Strategic planning. 2. Business planning. I. Title.

HD30.28 .H679 2009

658.4/01 2009925203

Printed in the United States of America on acid-free paper

09 10 11 12 13 14 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2

Second Edition

For my wife, Anne,
who makes Wonder Woman look like a slacker

Id like to thank my wife, Anne, for her strength, compassion, and optimistic attitude, all of which have nurtured a wonderful family. Thanks to my children, Luke and Jessica, for filling our home with love and laughter. I am eternally grateful to my parents, Jan and Rich, and sister, Sharon, for blessing me with their love and thoughtfulness and providing the ultimate role model for a happy family.

Id also like to thank the following business leaders for providing me with their wisdom and experiences through our work together: Mark Sutter, Don Pogorzelski, Jerry Casey, Bob Schruender, Allan Murphy, Paul OConnor, Norman Tashash, Chris Anderson, Nilaksh Kothari, Andrew de Guttadauro, Dean Gregory, Sharon Ryan, Dan Linden, Rob Schneider, Phil Tegeler, Bob Palumbo, Craig Besler, Marti Hayes, Michael Mehler, Rob Paterkiewicz, Jeffrey Sanfilippo, Jasper Sanfilippo Jr., Mike Valentine, Tom Fordonski, Domenick DiCindio, Terry Walsh, Kathy Billings, and Robert Hanf.

Thanks to the leadership team at the Lake Forest Graduate School of Management, especially Arlene Mayzel and Frank Brletich. Their guidance and friendship have helped me develop my teaching skills and given me the opportunity to educate a wonderful group of students. I am also very grateful to the students at LFGSM who have helped me continue to grow through our dynamic and insightful class discussions.

Finally, a special thanks to the amazing team at Greenleaf Book Group for their wonderful work throughout the publishing process, especially Chris McRay, Kristen Sears, Tanya Hall, Lisa Woods, Jay Hodges, Jeanne Pinault, Carrie Winsett, and Linda O'Doughda.

Be not the slave of your own past. Plunge into the sublime seas, dive deep and swim far, so you shall come back with self-respect, with new power, with an advanced experience that shall explain and overlook the old.

Ralph Waldo Emerson, writer and philosopher

Immersed in the sea of crystal blue water, I checked the tanks pressure gauge and verified what I had just noted. I was out of air. Unable to take another breath from the tank, I quickly ascended until my scuba mask crashed through the surface of the water into the warm Caribbean breeze. Yanking the regulator from my lips, I gulped in a huge mouthful of life-sustaining air. I then put in my snorkel and swam to shore. My inability to breathe had provided me with a forceful reminder of the importance of intelligently using ones limited resourcesin this case, oxygen.

And so it is with strategy. Each day we rely on strategy to determine how we use our limited resources to better our organizations place in the competitive landscape. Many firms never get to the point of taking their last breaths, and so they continue to slowly leak resources that dooms them to mediocre existences. It seems that without the watchful eye of urgency, the discipline to intelligently allocate our resourcestime talent, and moneyis washed out with the receding tide.

All managers have these resources to varying degrees within their organizations, and they must decide how to manage each. So, technically, all managers are strategists. The reality, however, is that not all managers are good strategists. Herein lies the pearl of great opportunity: the deeper you can dive into the business and resurface with strategic insights, the more valuable youll become to your organization. Effective resource allocation drives profitability (more resources invested in the right activities) and productivity (fewer resources invested in the wrong activities). The result is a high-performance organization in which all levels of management are encouraged and equipped to shape its strategic direction.

I was thrown out of college for cheating
on the metaphysics exam; I looked into
the soul of the boy sitting next to me.

Woody Allen, writer, director, and actor

Until now, looking into someones soul was about the only way weve had to guess whether or not someone is strategic. In many organizations it is assumed that senior executives are strategic and lower-level employees are not. As you might imagine, solely using someones title to determine his or her strategic ability is as accurate as using a Hollywood stars popularity to determine his or her knowledge of political issues.

Research on leadership by the American Management Association has shown that the most important competency for a leader is the ability to develop strategy. Organizations tend to invest training and development resources in the tangible operational areas of sales, customer service, and communication while neglecting the critical area of strategic thinking. Consider your organization. When was the last time you and your colleagues were provided with developmental programs specifically geared toward strategic thinking?

The worst enemy of the strategist is the clock.
Time trouble, as we call it in chess, reduces us
all to pure reflex and reaction, tactical play.

Garry Kasparov, former world chess champion

We all know the popular maxim that the most precious commodity is time. Time is the one resource that cant be renewed. Entire industries have been built around providing people with more time by outsourcing the less desirable tasks that can eat away at it: for example, cleaning services, lawn maintenance, and concierge-type services. Most of the ramifications of a lack of strategic thinking relate to wasting time. What follows are just a few examples from recent research: