1. Assess where you are. What’s the competitive climate facing your organization? Are you clear-eyed about your internal situation? Do you regularly and realistically assess your organizational strengths and weaknesses?
2. Know who you are and where you want to go. Strategic leaders need to understand the spoken and unspoken culture of the organization and its leadership. Imagine the company 10 or 20 years into the future — then look at the distance and direction you must travel to succeed.
3. Learn how to get there. Business strategy should be based on an understanding of key strategic drivers: the relatively few but critical determinants of long-term success. It’s also important to develop a leadership strategy for addressing the human and organizational capabilities that are needed to make the business strategy work.
4. Make the journey. How does strategy translate into action? What are the tactics needed to implement strategy? How does strategy seep into the lifeblood of the organization? Are decisions and behaviors throughout the organization consistent with the strategy?
5. Check your progress. Continue to assess your organization’s effectiveness. Do your key metrics keep your organization focused on the two or three top priorities for strategic success? Are adequate investments being made now to ensure your organization’s sustainable competitive advantage in the future?

Strategy is not only acting.  It is also learning.  Taking action enables the learning process to move forward.  Time to get out there and make it happen