Asimov’s Three Laws for Implementing Organization Strategy

Every business experiences a range of challenges. Some challenges are easy to surmount while others impact the business deeply. Successful businesses have leaders who anticipate these problems. While being tactical can help keep a business afloat, the only way to sustain and grow a business is to develop a good STRATEGY.

What is strategy?  Put simply, strategy is the bridge between the means and ends. In our daily lives we work on strategy all the time. I have to drive to office. Which route should I take (the strategy) to drive my car(means) to reach my office(end).

Businesses come up with a new strategy all the time. Great minds in management decide the best course of action for the business and finalize the strategy. Consultants are brought in and together with management, the Mission Statement, Goals, Plans and most importantly the Result are drafted. Soon the office experiences a blitzkrieg of posters, screen savers, town halls, movies and the whole media like circus.

Senior leaders and consultants hold meetings elaborating the strategy throughout the organization. They answer all the questions, but do not address the elephant in the room. Failure to acknowledge the elephant leads to a rampage which destroys the execution of the strategy. So what is it that organization like to brush under the carpet?

Every Strategy brings about transformation. Every transformation leads to the process of molting. This means, old habits, processes, departments and at times the leader have to go.

As soon as a Strategy is unveiled, people behave like a rabbit caught in the headlights. Most employees gauge if they will benefit or lose because of the strategy. Middle managers juxtapose their department strategy with the organization strategy.

The decision to support, or smartly oppose the strategy is reached, long before the first session of Strategy dissemination ends. "What will happen to me and my people" is the only questions, in every mind, in the room. This is the Elephant that nobody acknowledges.

In my experience, everybody wants to support the organization. They want to be good citizens and ensure that everybody wins. However Maslow's hierarchy of needs comes into effect and opposition to the strategy begins. Every leader thinks about his department first and then the organization. Righteous individuals struggle to decide the right path. Indecision becomes the norm.

Organization should help people to take the right decision during the strategy implementation. That’s where I think Asimov can help.

Isaac Asimov was an American writer and professor of biochemistry at Boston University. He was known for his works of science fiction and Three Laws of Robotics. Asimov stated that any robots designed by human should follow the following laws(an interesting video here)

1. A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.
2. A robot must obey orders given it by human beings except where such orders would conflict with the First Law.
3. A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law.

Asimov's three laws of robotics were designed to guide robots in their interaction with humans and provide a safe way for future robotic development, one that cannot threaten human existence. Yet in his own short stories Asimov's robots always happen to fall into all kinds of trouble while following the laws in reality.

These rules can be modified for cascading the strategy of an organization. How about the following rules for implementing strategy.

1. A department strategy may not injure the organization strategy or, through inaction, allow the organization strategy to come to harm.
2. A department strategy must obey orders given to it by organization strategy except where such orders would conflict with the First Law.
3. A department strategy must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law.

The rules provide a simple decision making tree. Everybody will be able to understand and execute changes in his department using the above rules. Alas! Its never that easy. I have never seen any organization laying out the rules this simple to understand. Why all the big words, jargon, cliches and ADVERTISING!

These rules are not elixir though. People will still have some tough decision to take. These rules will not solve all the problems. They will only help people segregate the changes into easy to execute and cannot be executed. I know this sounds very simple.

In real life these rules may not be practical. Even Asimov faced the same conundrum.

In his later books, Asimov postulated the 0th law of robotics. The 0th law states

0.    A robot may not harm humanity.

Asimov stated that robot may harm some human beings if it feels that this action is necessary to save humanity. Should a leader harm his own department/business group to help the organization? Should a leader step back for the benefit of the organization? Should people give up the exsiting role, something they have worked hard for years to achieve?What do you think? I don’t know the answer. Like everybody else, Maslow haunts me as well.