Number 5
Dear Clients and Friends:
Write the word "strategic."
Now put any of the following after it... planning, visioning,
thinking, conversation.
Throw these words in the mix : scenario, catalyst,
implementation.
What do you get ? Something you believe in? Or something
that falls short?
The
world of strategy is a complex place ...with believers on all
sides of the concept.
Everyone seems to agree on one thing: You've got to have
it . Without it, you, your company or your organization is
out there, wandering around without any direction.
That's the extent of the agreement. That's what I've found in working
with clients,
and staying current with the literature which has been pretty thin since
the mid-1990s.
Yet executives spend little of their time actually doing it...about
3% . That's the number estimated by strategy scholars Gary
Hamel and C.K. Prahalad. In their book, The Leadership Challenge , Kouzes
and Posner say leaders need to do better in building a collective perspective
on the future in their organizations.
A vision at least 3 to 5 years out is what's needed.
It's part of being a good leader.
In making strategy,
what makes sense? Cross strategic planning off your list .
Gurus say it doesn't work . The old Soviet Union failed
miserably using it. American businesses found it wasn't what it was
cracked up to be and many have discarded it.
Recognizing that strategic planning often had no relationship to reality,
Jack Welch shut down GE's 200-person planning department in 1983.
The reason: Old-style strategic planning is all about
control and leaves no room to be either creative or opportunistic
along the way. So says Henry Mintzberg in his exhaustive and leading
book, The Rise and Fall of Strategic Planning .
Companies need both the orderliness of a plan AND the ability
to be opportunistic .
Ability to be opportunistic means strategy can come from anywhere in
the organization. It means trying things out, being creative, jumping
on unexpected things that happen.
Why does the use of strategic planning linger on ?
One reason: One person's strategy is another's tactics. A company calls
it a strategic plan when it's really a very specific mapping of activity
for the next 12 months, often attached to a budget. Another reason:
Leaders' understanding of what strategy is, how it's created is limited.
Strategic
conversation is the term that makes the most sense ...
But what is it, really? Look at this 3-part definition
by the Global Business Network, pioneers in the field. First, an organization
is a community with a common purpose, which exists in a strategic conversation.
Second, a strategic conversation is an on-going learning loop of perception,
conceptualization, decision-making and action. Third, strategy is a
coherent pattern of action that consciously intervenes in the ongoing
evolution of the organization.
Several
ways to get the conversation going and keep it going :
Use strategic visioning as a catalyst . Take anywhere
from one to three days to look back at an organization's history, the
environment in which it operates, the strengths and weaknesses it has
and the opportunities and threats it faces. Then look ahead five years,
envisioning the future, distilling specific vision points, figuring
commitments to action and writing an implementation plan. As people
actually implement, much more strategic conversation will occur, plans
will be adjusted, new ideas added.
Use
scenarios to spur strategic conversation . Scenarios are tools
to learn from the future. They recognize the future is complex, uncertain
and not in our control, that prediction is impossible, that forecasting
is generally wrong. They allow leaders to think about multiple possible
futures and "what if" situations. With scenarios, leaders draw implications,
create options and chart direction, depending on how the scenarios play
out.
Treat action planning as an opportunity for strategic discussion
. In sorting out who does what and by when, strategic insights
fall out, ideas surface. Those insights and ideas warrant further discussion,
lead to new directions. Keep track and circle back to consider
them in more detail later.
Reach back into the past to identify unrecognized patterns
that amount to strategy and put them on the table for people to look
at. In many organizations, strategy emerges because someone in an out-of-the-way
department tried something that worked and managers were smart enough
to bring it to others' attention, elevate it to the level of strategy
for the entire organization.
Share analysis on specific issues . Because they spend
so much time just trying to get it done, line managers have little time
to look at nagging issues. Others in the organization can do the research
and disseminate the results. The findings can be the catalyst for strategy
discussions.
In sum, everything is strategy; nothing is strategy. It depends on how you guide the conversations. "The real voyage of discovery," said Marcel Proust, "consists not in seeking new lands, but in seeking with new eyes.
Yours very truly,
Principal, Conbrio
For more about strategic conversation, scenarios, strategic visioning, action planning and how we use visual language as a catalyst, visit our website at www.conbrioamericas.com, or e-mail me at bbancroft@conbrioamericas.com or call me at 214-941-8199.
