Welcome Baywalk readers to the February edition of Creating Success Viewpoint on Baywalk.com. We continue our three part series entitled "It’s all about Focus" with this month's installment, Having the "RIGHT" Focus. We hope it proves enlightening and thought provoking to our readers.

As February begins, companies and their leadership begin to think about strategic planning and the corporate focus for 1999. Whether you have completed your planning process, or are just beginning, this month's discussion of Corporate Focus and the strategic plan should be beneficial.

We have talked previously about the varied approaches to strategic planning, and their use or misuse in companies. We have also covered corporate and leader focus on business issues and how this can enhance or undermine the company's success. This month I am taking you back to the basics, the fundamentals of strategic planning. No, this is not going to be a discussion of how strategic plans are written. This is a review of basic definitions and corporate focus fundamentals.

When you use the term strategic plan, do you understand what you are talking about? I know that sounds like a rather rude question, but stop for a moment and consider the following. If ask you to define strategic plan in one sentence, can you do it? Most people give answers that focus on the second of the two words, "plan." Why, because they understand the definition of the word plan far better than the definition of the word strategic.

Let’s get basic. Strategic comes from the word strategy. How would you define strategy? I use a definition from a wise educator named Anshoff. His work in the ‘60’s regarding strategic planning was ignored by most U.S. businesses (not that many have good strategic plans today), but studied by Japanese companies and became the foundation of their economic and manufacturing recovery in the ‘70’s and ‘80’s.

Strategy is a long range plan of achieving a market position (total market or market segment), where retaliation by your competition takes a long time or is cost prohibitive.

Read it again. And again. This is one of the most powerful statements that a company or leader can embrace. This statement gives me chills, for it invokes the passion of clear vision and attaining a unique position of success. If having the "Right Focus" is important to your company, understanding strategy is a great place to start.

Ever been in a planning meeting where too much time is spent arguing about the definitions of strategic & tactical? Can you lay claim to understanding the difference between strategy and tactics? If not, you are certainly not alone. These two terms are more misused than just about any other business terms. The bad news: failing to grasp the differences between strategic and tactical, places companies and leaders at a distinct disadvantage when attempting to develop a strategic plan and corporate focus. To help you gain a foothold to understanding these terms, I will again call on two descriptions by Anshoff of strategy and tactics.

• Strategy is a matter of effectiveness

• Tactics is a matter of efficiency

I find the above description to be very helpful to my clients as we work through a strategic planning process. But a more simplistic and powerful description is:

• Strategy To do the right thing!

• Tactics To do the thing right!

Simple. Too simple? I think not. Let’s face it, we make strategic planning far more difficult than it is. And without a strategic plan, how can a company or leader develop and maintain the "Right Focus." And without the ‘Right Focus," how do corporations and leaders employ the effective use of corporate resources to achieve success with efficiency.

Strategy. Tactics. Effectiveness. Efficiency. To do the right thing. To do the thing right.

All of these add up to: "Having the Right Focus"

Have a great month.