Bear with me a bit here, it does make sense…

Your business is analogous to a plane; the bigger and more complex the plane, the more knowledge is needed to steer it. A hotdog stand might be like a microlight, an international banking business might be a jumbo jet and a typical SME might be like a mid-size private jet.

Now, if you’re a trained pilot, you can probably hop in a light aircraft, take off from Biggin Hill airport just outside London, fly north for a bit and land at London City airport – in good weather, at daytime and even without the use of a map or instruments. It might be a bit stressful but eminently possible.

Change the situation a bit though and things get either massively more stressful or downright impossible. Jumbo jet from London to Tokyo at night with stormy weather on the way? With no map and no instruments? Change of trousers time.

In this analogy the map is your strategy and the instruments your data – whether that be KPIs, financial reports or customer analytics. You can certainly run your business with one or the other, or even neither, but you’re not going to feel relaxed or in control. In addition, a downturn in the economy or your sector or unforeseen circumstances are going to really hit you hard, and possibly too late to do anything about.

No amount of maps and instruments will turn a bad pilot into a good one, but even the best pilot doesn’t fly blind.

Need help with the map or the instruments? Give me a shout.

 nathan@nbstrategy.co.uk.