Executing Strategy: Leveraging Ideation to Navigate Uncertainty

“Personal leadership is the process of keeping your vision and values before you and aligning your life to be congruent with them.” - Stephen Covey. ??

Leaders are made during uncertainty, just as leaders are made for uncertainty. The Nigerian economy further threw up a lot of uncertainty and challenges in the first quarter of the year, leaving many entrepreneurs, business leaders, and their teams baffled and disorganized.

In the realm of business, the ability to execute strategy effectively is paramount to success, especially in the face of uncertainty. While uncertainty may present challenges and obstacles, it also creates opportunities for those with the strength of ideation to innovate, adapt, and thrive. In this context, ideation emerges as a powerful asset, capable of guiding organizations through turbulent times and positioning them for long-term success. I have observed this in many long-term companies with long-term

Ideation represents the foundation of an individual’s ability to find meaning or an organization’s ability to create and sustain value. The outcome of a strong process of ideation easily differentiates the organization, boosts a culture of resilience, helps to attract the best employees, and gains the buy-in of stakeholders. This is one of the secrets of building a large institution with long-term sustainability and competitiveness through turbulent times. ?

What makes leaders and leading organizations appear bold and resilient during uncertainty is their conviction about who they are, what their purpose is and where they are going. The clarity and communication of their conviction always depend on the depth of their ideation. It is at the point of ideation that leaders clarify, articulate and communicate their identity, their purpose and long-range intentions.

Ideation fosters adaptability by encouraging experimentation, agility, and continuous learning. It enables organizations to quickly pivot in response to market shifts, emerging trends, and unexpected disruptions, ensuring they remain agile and resilient in the face of change.

Ideation is fundamental to executing strategy in that it clarifies and communicates the following:

Identity: Who are you? What makes you different from everyone else? What kind of company are you? A strong identity is the first step to strategic differentiation and is central to a company’s ability to compete. Your choice of identity will influence your approach to opportunities, risks, and the strategic projects you undertake. For instance, the reinvention of IBM’s strategic identity in the 1990s from a “product company” to a “solutions provider” impacted its vision, goals, and strategic projects. Likewise, Access Bank reinvented its identity from a “world-class bank” to a respectable institution “beyond banking,” thereby communicating its leveraged dynamism to its different stakeholders.?

Purpose: Why do you exist? What good do you do and who is the beneficiary? Purpose trumps circumstances. A sense of purpose is critical to creating a sustainable organisation or business. The clarity of your purpose and mission will let you face challenges head-on. People can withstand enormously negative situations if they have a strong enough sense of purpose. When leaders and businesses lose their connection to their purpose, they lose focus or die. Purpose will help leaders and their teams understand and assert the value they bring to the table

Long-Range Intention Vision

Without a sense of long-range thinking, companies tend to invest their energy in short-term activities. So even if leaders feel flexible and want to change their plans, the decisions must be based on and guided by the fundamental factors of purpose, mission, vision, and values.

Your Philosophy

An organisation’s strategic philosophy combines its identity, purpose and long-term intention to drive its culture, decisions and activities towards the overall goal. The creed, or statement of belief, remains a driving force for leaders and their teams. The effectiveness of execution and competitiveness stems from an individual's or organisation’s beliefs. Whether you believe you can or you can’t, you are right.

Every successful company invests considerable time in the process of ideation because it provides the thinking board to (re)design responses to or take advantage of changes in government policy, demand levels or patterns, technology, supply, pricing, competition, legal or environmental requirements, style, etc. By fostering a culture of ideation, organizations can continuously generate fresh ideas and breakthrough innovations that differentiate them from competitors and propel them forward in dynamic markets. A process of ideation set within the context of the prevailing business environment leads businesses to competitiveness and sustainability.

A case study of Access Bank, which has consistently grown into one of the largest and most successful enterprises in Nigeria in the last 22 years, shows that a process of ideation through constant “intimate brainstorming" and “team bonding” sessions is strongly encouraged and remains one of their pillars of growth. The process of ideation is consistently done at all levels. In his book, “Leaving the Tarmac,” Aig Imhoukhuede referred to it as going to the “bush” with his team.

By leveraging ideation, organizations can unlock new opportunities, overcome challenges, and navigate uncertainty for sustainable growth and competitiveness.