Creating Something New is Easy. Creating Something That Will Last is the Challenge

In a world filled with mountains of management books, countless executive MBA courses, and an almost infinite amount of vernacular babel to say the same thing, it can be overwhelming to piece together an organizational alignment methodology that can powerfully resonate with both the hearts and minds of all who interact with it.

However, if we can get all the pieces to fall into place in a cohesive way, something mysterious can happen. Something that can literally re-write the rules of business.

Valued consultants and consiglieri help us think critically in all shapes and sizes. From flow charts to our favorite four quadrant matrices, the array of options are mind-numbing.? But for this challenge, let’s use the Eye of Providence as inspiration for the shape of a framework that great teams can use to amass a comprehensive toolkit that can connect the dots and ultimately align, inspire, and motivate the masses…as a triangle (or A-frame of reference) is an ancient but familiar shape that has proven time and time again to point us in the right direction.

Conventional wisdom teaches us that every good endeavor should start at the pinnacle, the Purpose.? Finding our True North, our North Star, first and foremost sounds intuitive if we are Thinking Fast.? However, we’ve learned from our studies of “The Undoing Project” that Thinking Slow can sometimes help us see an unconventional approach that involves wading into the messy middle to help us ultimately pursue our Purpose.

Starting with Strategies and Plans may seem counter to what the dogma of the present day teachings would tell us.? We are constantly bombarded with literature, speeches, and podcasts from thought leaders which propel us to “Discover your Purpose,’ ‘Find your Why?,’ ‘Seek your Calling,’ ‘Commit to a noble Cause.’? The reality, though, is that Purpose rarely falls like manna from the sky in a miraculous moment that quenches an organizational longing for sustenance and meaning.

Trekking through the Wilderness

Instead, Purpose is most often discovered over a long and winding journey which may require us to meander through green fields, quiet waters, and desolate valleys before finding it.? Further, some of the most compelling Purposes are birthed out of significant trials and tribulations.? A noble Purpose often emerges and finds deep emotional connections with people who have endured through exploitation themselves, of our families and friends, of our teammates, of our communities, and/or our cultural tribes we identify with.? The enduring Purpose statements that emerge from these types of journeys also have a tendency to resonate with those whose actions (or inactions), upon reflection, may have contributed to the suffering of one or many. For these folks, a commitment to Purpose is synonymous with their hope and a sense of gratitude for forgiveness of their actions (or inactions).

And for those of us who find ourselves in organizations already built around prideful legacies and preceding worn paths that span decades and even centuries, starting at the top of the pyramid is not really an option due to the insurmountable change management slope that we would face off against when battling the institutional status quo from the top.

Parachuting into Theatre - Coming in Hot

So for those little flock cohorts with a conviction to really change the Game, coupled with the courage, steely grit, and staying power needed to make a lasting impact, we are better off with getting boots on the ground in the middle of this triangular frame of reference. An initial focus on developing and executing Strategies gives us a few advantages that are critical in transformational change that lasts.

First, the remit of special teams (e.g. A-team, B-Team, C-Team) focused on Strategies forces us to step back and perform an objective situational assessment of the domains or industries we play in and discern how well we are really playing the Game.?

Second, this situational assessment will reveal brutal truths, or some significant pain points, that can serve as a catalyst in creating a compelling case for action which cannot be ignored.? And we know from John Kotter’s Good Work that creating a sense of urgency is the first step in the journey toward achieving transformational change.

Picking from the Plethora of Strategy Playbooks

Once we’ve landed in the hot zone of Strategies, we can find ourselves surrounded by mountains of strategy development frameworks and mental models to choose from.? Spending too much time on analyzing which toolkit is the best can paralyze our initial efforts. Worse, the instinct of devising our own bespoke toolkit to support our bold endeavors is a decision fraught with a ‘not invented here’ mental block destined to thwart our efforts.

Instead, there are 3 tools to support the Strategies effort we would recommend to place in the team’s rucksack based on our personal experience using them over the last decade in multiple theatres.? These toolkits for developing and executing Strategies have been crafted through the good work of Willie Pietersen , Renée Mauborgne, W. Chan Kim, and Michael Porter over the last few decades and are inching us closer toward an infinite mindset.

The Five Forces Model from Porter is a comprehensive tool to help with situational assessment.

Using a tool like this to help teams adequately survey the landscape before choosing a path is paramount.? Too often, this reconnaissance effort is foregone or rushed.? And without an objective, diverse, and accurate account of the current environment, the tendency is to rely solely on previous experience, our collective instincts, and/or the current status quo thinking.

More recently, Porter and other collaborators have also introduced the concept of integrating the classical triad of cost leadership, differentiation, and focus strategies, which, initially were thought to be distinct strategic choices. But now, when entangled, have found to create synergy that can help us pull away from others.? A great reference to a more comprehensive primer of the General playbook of Porter is available for free from digitalleadership.com : https://digitalleadership.com/blog/porters-generic-strategies/

More Tools to help Formulate our Paths

Similarly, the Blue Ocean strategy thesis dismisses the traditional paradigm that you must choose between cost leader, differentiation, or singular product or service silo.? Instead, the working hypothesis is that there is a sweet spot between these which, if found, can result in redefining a marketplace and even an entire industry.

The Strategy Canvas coupled with the 4 Action Framework are indispensable tools from the Blue Ocean Strategy collection which are useful to help teams create a value curve, or strategic profile, which is the graphic representation of an organization’s relative performance across the factors of competition in its industry or domain. It shows how our organization’s current strategy compares against the competitive landscape? Even more importantly though, it can then help teams make intentional strategic choices that create divergence from the status quo and enable laser like focus on the factors that need to change in order to realize a future state.

As the literature of Mauborgne and Kim highlights, a successful situational assessment and resulting set of strategic choices have 3 distinct characteristics:

1. Focus – a clearly defined strategic profile or value curve helps organizations avoid trying to be everything to all customers and/or stakeholders

2. Divergence – Explicit choices that support a breaking away from the industry’s standard value curve and even our own historical sense of key value levers to stand apart from others on a new and sometimes unchartered path.

3. Compelling tagline – delivering a clear, truthful message that accurately reflects your strategic profile is the essence of galvanizing an entire organization toward transformational change.

In constructing the strategy canvas, the Blue Ocean strategy guidebook encourages teams to look at adjacent industries and plot non-traditional competitors in order to reveal an emerging pathway which may not have been taken before.? An overview of the playbook is also offered for free by the Artists at https://www.blueoceanstrategy.com .

Strategy as a Continuous Learning Loop

Last, but not least, is the Strategic Learning Process from Pietersen which offers a great general representation of the continuous cycle that is Strategies.? The overarching strategic learning continuum is a tool that helps ground organizational leaders and then orient ourselves as to where we are in the strategies cycle and develop muscle memory to keep moving forward, renewing our view, and refining our winning proposition in the arena(s) we are choosing to play in.

But the magic of this handy Strategies tool happens between the 3 o’clock and 6 o’clock positions on the proverbial Willie Wheel in ‘minding the Gap’.? The key to getting the work of Strategies right, according to the experience of the cohorts, is the disciplined thought that goes into

1. defining the current state (From…) vs. desired future state (To…),
2. understanding and articulating the gaps,
3. analyzing the array of organizational dimensions which then need to change to be better aligned to the desired future state, and then
4. translating these into a comprehensive Strategy to Execution roadmap, filled with Activity Plans, to help enable the transformational change be executed successfully over time.

NOTE: An Activity Plan is defined as a composition of initiatives, milestones, and other activities which are being performed to progress toward a desired future state. A Strategy to Execution Roadmap is defined as a suite of activity plans associated with multiple desired future state objectives.

We all know from experience and countless case studies, most transformation efforts fail in this stage of the continuum due to lack of systems thinking which emphasizes the interconnectedness of talent, processes, structure, tools, rewards, incentives, and behaviors that have to change in an orchestrated fashion to actually make transformational changes stick.? Any one of these dimensions that are not adequately addressed tend to end up as the Achilles heel that can easily unravel a good endeavor over time.

Moving Forward with Confidence

The Strategies and Plans piece of this Enterprise Alignment Triangle can often dissuade those who feel daunted by parachuting into this tumultuous drop zone, with its complex theologies and pompous pontificates who make Strategies sound like a subject for only the most educated and elite operators.? But the truth is that the skill of creating and executing strategies is like the skill of carpentry.? It’s just picking up a few good tools that are proven to work well, finding some good teammates to train with, and practicing with them over and over again.? Once you’ve practiced enough, it becomes a skill that can be further crafted into an art.

It’s also important to remember that the development of ‘strategery’ can be overrated.? A blue collared ally who is steeped in a multitude of military, public, and private sector experiences of planning and executing Strategies over the last four decades once said ‘An average strategy executed well is much better than a brilliant strategy executed poorly.’? So, the secret worth sharing is just getting the 3 basics in Strategies right.

1. Do a proper situational assessment - Get help by assembling a team with diverse perspectives who have some experience with the tools and who don’t have a self interest in the status quo.
2. Frame and make choices that have real tradeoffs - creating a watered down set of strategies that tries to be everything to everyone and do all things to satisfy everyone involved is a familiar scent that comes from lacking courage of conviction. Not triggering tension between stakeholders, not exposing downside risk, and not creating divergence from the current well trodden path is an insult to those counting on the teams tasked with fighting through the messy middle.? And using Strategies development as a method to achieve consensus among all stakeholders is a familiar recipe for mediocrity.? As Margaret Thatcher famously once said, “Consensus: The process of abandoning all beliefs, principles, values, and policies in search of something in which no one believes, but to which no one objects; the process of avoiding the very issues that have to be solved, merely because you cannot get agreement on the way ahead. What great cause would have been fought and won under the banner: ‘I stand for consensus?”
3. Check, double check, and triple check your 6…o’clock position on the Willie Wheel - Does the team have an execution roadmap that takes on all the relevant dimensions of talent, process, structure, tools, rewards, incentives, and behaviors?? Do the execution efforts include teammates who took part in developing the strategy to ensure the strategic intent is being followed as the situation changes on the ground?? Have the execution teams dodged the hardest dimensions to change just to make it easier to complete the mission? …or worse, has the execution roadmap been infected by self interested parties to preserve some elements of the status quo?? Spending enough time to account for all these elements and confronting the resistance and resistors who want an easier and more convenient path forward can be excruciating.? But this is where the wars of transformation are won and lost.

Two roads Diverged in a Yellow Wood…

So if the little flock has chosen to commit to the road less travelled…and after parachuting an A-team into the center of the triangle with the mandate to create something that will last... and after getting Strategies to a good enough state with our rucksacks now filled with a few more tools to help us on the journey…

The inevitable question now lingers: Where do the teams go next?

Pick up some more tools needed to traverse up toward Future State Objectives or stop and wait for reinforcements on the trail down toward Initiatives or Key Results??

Well, If we have done our homework in combining the Arts of Love, “The Art of War,” ”The Art of Action”, … and the Arts of Great Teamwork… then we can have confidence in any direction chosen.? In fact, we can open up on multiple fronts because the complete toolkit of the enterprise alignment pyramid already exists. The cohorts needed to connect the dots are already afoot and awaiting orders in the Arts needed to help us through this long and winding journey. And the decision to invest and equip teams with the right toolkits will allow this reticent flock to be patient and wait for the right signals and the right timing before embarking on the next waypoint toward Purpose…knowing that sometimes you have to take the long way around…

Stay tuned for the next chapter and…

#DontBeASuperChicken … consider being a Goose…or a Duck… or a Penguin… or a Turtle instead

A shout out to the humble hens and roosters out there armored up and waiting patiently to make a difference.? We see you.? We stand with you.? coup d'?il.?