Many of us are veterans of SWOT sessions, in which members of an organization sit in a conference room to brainstorm the organization’s “Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats.” This exercise is designed to produce a 2x2 diagram, with each quadrant compiling SWOT brainstormers’ thoughts about the internal factors (the strengths and weaknesses identified in the top two quadrants) and external forces (the opportunities and threats identified in the bottom two quadrants) affecting the organization’s path forward. Ideally, the SWOT team integrates the insights compiled in the four quadrants to produce specific recommendations that can be acted upon to make the organization more successful in its competitive ecosystem.
But – in your experience – how often has the SWOT process produced creative, focused and actionable initiatives? As the recent HBR article (“Are You Doing the SWOT Analysis Backward”) by Professors Minsky and Aron* highlights, the conventional way of undertaking this process often produces vague and unsatisfying results. This can stem from: (i) pursuing the process by starting with strengths and weaknesses; (ii) failing to be clear at the outset what constitutes a strength, weakness, opportunity or threat; and (iii) succumbing to the format of letter-sized 2x2s by compiling lists in each quadrant of single words and short phrases “because that’s all that can fit.” In addition – consistent with my personal experience as leader of a practice group in a major law firm – the participants’ fatigue, impatience or boredom with brainstorming can short-circuit the “second effort” needed to integrate the SWOT insights into simple sentences providing valuable, clear-cut and supported recommendations.
The authors don’t suggest jettisoning the SWOT tool. Instead, their powerful insight is to make the tool far more effective by flipping the order of the SWOT process. That is, start by considering the external factors (opportunities and threats), and then move to the internal factors (strengths and weaknesses). The validity of this approach is intuitive, compared with the alternative. To start with strengths and weaknesses puts the brainstormers in a bell jar, asking themselves with exasperation the question “…strengths and weaknesses in relation to WHAT?” By starting with opportunities and threats, the participants are in a position to identify with much greater particularity how the organization can capitalize on its strengths and address its weaknesses in order to seize the right opportunities and combat the most serious threats. With the implementation of specific actionable steps arising from the reordered process, the organization is in a much stronger position to achieve its mission and serve its customers and stakeholders.
*For the full text of the article, see my LinkedIn post at