A couple weeks ago I helped a friend to do a “lift off” for a new business venture. The problem was that he had had the idea for many years but had so far never been able to start it. There was absolutely no reason why he couldn’t start this business – he had all the necessary skills, experience and knack to do it – and pull it off. And yet, he hadn’t started. Why was that?
I wondered if the initial step was the most difficult – especially if one is starting on their own.
So I proposed a ‘Lift off’. This is something that I learned from Diana Larsen and have used it to great effect in the workplace and for my own ideas (I have also written about it previously). The intention is to set the direction, generate the energy to lift off and sustain the momentum.
Since he is on his own, we mainly really needed to focus on the ‘purpose’ of this venture to identify the direction and start generating the energy (confidence) to lift off.
Purpose
Defining the purpose helped us to define:
- who the customers are (often not those we initially think they are),
- the outcomes we are seeking (the change in behaviour that we’d like to see) and how we’d measure that,
- what we are delivering (in plain understandable language),
- what differentiates us from any competitors, and
- the value we bringing to the customer.
From those key areas – which took a couple of hours to define – we were able to co-create a vision of how we are going to change the customer’s life for the better.
As a next stage (to start developing the momentum) we were able to create some objectives (or mission tests) which we’ll use to pull ourselves closer to this new north star.
We started, but only very briefly, looking at some immediate actions for the backlog and thinking how we can create some hypotheses to test our assumptions as quickly and as risk-free as possible.
‘Lift off’ as a strategy deployment framework
I read an article recently about different strategy alignment frameworks by Karl Scotland (who in turn was inspired by Mattias Skarin’s article!) and I found it curious that, even though Diana Larsen’s ‘Lift off’ was intended to start agile projects and sustain the momentum, it also seemed to fit many of the requirements to be a strategy deployment framework, particularly the purpose-alignment-context framework. I contacted Karl Scotland, an expert on strategy deployment, about this and he responded saying that indeed there were definitely synergies, and that he had heard that comparison before.
At any rate, back to my friend: two weeks later I learned that he had left his job and is now embarking on this journey. I was pleased to hear that the lift off helped him to clarify the direction.
Most importantly for him the process helped him muster up the confidence and energy to – lift off!
Lift off
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Recommended reading
“Lift Off” by Diana Larsen and Ainsley Nies