6. Put the Right People in the Right Place Its critical that you include your team as part of your strategic thinking. Before you can implement your plan, you must make sure that you have the right people in place. Even the best strategic thinking wont help if you dont take into account the people part of the equation. Look at what happens if you miscalculate: Wrong Person: Problems instead of Potential Wrong Place: Frustration instead of Fulfillment Wrong Plan: Grief instead of Growth Everything comes together, however, when you put together all three elements: the right person, the right

7. Keep Repeating the Process My friend Olan Hendrix remarked, Strategic thinking is like showering, you have to keep doing it. If you expect to solve any major problem once, youre in for disappointment. Little things can be won easily through systems and personal discipline. But major issues need major strategic thinking time. What Thane Yost said is really true: The will to win is worthless if you do not have the will to prepare. If you want to be an effective strategic thinker, then you need to become a continuous strategic thinker. As I was working on this chapter, I came across an article in my local paper on the celebration of the Jewish

Passover and how millions of American Jews read the order of service for their Seder, or Passover meal, from a small booklet produced by Maxwell House Coffee. For more than seventy years, the coffee company has produced the booklet, called a Haggada, and during those years it has distributed more than 40 million copies of it. I remember using them all my life, said Regina Witt, who is in her fifties. So does her mother, who is almost ninety. Its our tradition. I think it would be very strange not to use them. 9

So how did Maxwell House come to supply the booklets? It was the result of strategic thinking. Eighty years ago, marketing man Joseph Jacobs advised that the company could sell coffee during Passover if the product were certified Kosher by a rabbi. (Since 1923, Maxwell House coffee has been certified Kosher for Passover.) And then Jacobs suggested that if they gave away the Haggada booklets, they could increase sales. 10 Theyve been creating the bookletsand selling coffee during Passoverever since. Thats what can happen when you unleash the power of strategic thinking. Thinking Question Am I implementing strategic plans that give me direction for today and increase my potential for tomorrow? 6 Explore Possibility Thinking Nothing is so embarrassing as watching someone do something that you said could not be done.