The Shocking Simplicity of Strategic Thinking - Gary Hamel case

World renowned strategy guru Gary Hamel has made an excellent video.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aodjgkv65MM

 

 

The watching of that video makes one wonder what is the true nature of strategic thinking. It is intriguing to realize that here top thinker of certain topic (strategy) gives a presentation about latest ideas of his domain and, somewhat shockingly,  everything on that video is clear and very simple. It is safe to assume that every layman would immediately understand every word and every idea discussed on this video. How is this possible? What this all tell about strategic thinking? What this all tell about the way how strategic thinking is often perceived and presented?

Let us take any other discipline and let us imagine that the most advanced thinker would give a presentation about the latest findings on his field. I believe quite often layman could not follow at all what the thinker would be presenting. And even if the thinker liked to make a very special effort and speak to everyone, like Brian Greene about String theory, we would sense how he is making extra effort to make most complex issues at least somewhat understandable to us all. We would also be acutely aware that the expert could easily change his speaking mode and after that change we would immediately “drop off the wagon”.

In the case of strategic thinking things seem to be different - outright clarity and simplicity seem to prevail. How is this possible? I believe that we have to start to perceive strategic thinking a bit differently. But before going to that let us take couple perspectives on the Gary Hamel’s presentation. First, it can be said generally that simplicity is not the thing that comes first, it is something what comes last. So when a person really knows his topic, he is able to present even difficult matters clearly. Secondly, in the strategy world this video is naturally a business case in itself and it would probably difficult to sell something which would be very difficult to understand. Certainly this video increases the demand so that different organizers all over the world want to get Gary Hamel to give his presentation in their seminars. Also it is fair to recognize that this is just a very short video within which the expert tells his case as clearly and as convincingly as possible. And the presentation is just excellent.

Yet, I propose that we should also attach something important to every discussion and every presentation about strategy. This is because doing strategy in any real setting is actually very, very difficult and demanding. It is not a simple case, easy to follow and that's it. And although any presentation can operate on its own right, we should perhaps always try to remember to connection between presentation and real world.

 

Hence I would propose that we should attach at least following three caveats to every presentation about strategy:

1)      Let us always evaluate the logic of the presentation. Is it something which is nice to hear or does it seem to correspond the facts of real life. For instance, in this video under discussion we hear how organizations in the future will take into account the needs of us humans. Absolutely great idea. However, in real life this humanization of organizations is certainly one trend but old style will continue in many industries and in many organizations. Sometimes the old style is due the incapability to change and sometime it may be that the realities of certain industry are such that freedoms in certain positions in certain kind of processes just are rather limited. It may also be that in some areas of business and organizational activities very intensive coordination will be the way to succeed also in the future and in those cases people just do their part in the extremely well planned process and that’s it.

2)      Strategy in action is not just ideas, it is much, much more and often these other things are the ones which determine whether the organization succeeds and moves towards desired direction. These so called other things include, a lot of all kind of work day after day, an ability to stand all kinds of pressures and all kinds of uncertainties, and also an ability to learn all the time, because the planned route never works, there will be failures and dead ends.

3)      Strategy is not a one man show. There are people around and each of us has something to say in every strategy development and implementation. Also everything happens in some business environment which is constantly changing. This means that in real world we all operate in middle of numerous willing people and all kind of surprises which may rapidly change the whole setting. Clarity and simplicity are not part of the picture.

 In sum. What is strategic thinking? Can we take strategic thinking out from the complex world and examine it is something very simple and clear? Is it beneficial to do so? What kind of discussion about strategy would be most useful to those people how try to make their organizations more successful?

I believe deeper and deeper understanding about real life and about situations where people operate is the cornerstone of strategic wisdom.

 

The magic button — Make Everything OK

The magic button — Make Everything OK

FRICTIONLESS SHARING - PERSPECTIVES

The concept "Frictionless sharing" is really something which makes your head spin. What could it be, what could it mean. For those who wish to look what that concept actually means the following wikipedia link is usefull: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frictionless_sharing

In this blog I wish to take that concept a bit further, I will sail freely to the theoretical waters. What could it meand if we could share everything frictionlessly. And although this text is highly hyphotetical it may also reveal something very practical and very concrete. It will offer something to consider when we wish to develop our organizations to the direction where people share more and where people make their work more and more transparent to others.

Whose life should we live

Taken to its extreme frictionless sharing would mean that we would all live one life. One person would share everything to the others and we rest would try to keep up. This is of course absolutely extreme proposition, and of course frictionless does not really mean anything like this. On the other hand this makes us think that who should share, what and in which different settings. Let us assume that CEO uses 5 hours of his day in meetings, should s/he share this experience to others? Should he share part of it to others? What part and to whom?

I believe these are relevant questions and we are all in the middle of this exercise. What should we share and to whom? Thanks to technological developments the question how to share does not seem to be the biggest challenge at all.

Do I have something to say, something to share

In our University we have lot of technical tools which we can use when we wish to share things (ideas, thoughts, observations, plans, etc.) with each other. For instance, we have University wide Yammer. So, in principle we have a platform where 2600 experts could think together.

It just occurred to me that have I ever seen something or thought an idea which would be worth sharing with all in our own organization? I would propose that this kind of question is a real epistemological and also very practical problem in our time.

I work as an Executive Education Director in our University. So in principle I should have some idea how organizations work and kind of information is relevant. Nevertheless, it is not so easy to think what kind of observation in practical terms would be such which I or anyone in our organization should share with others. Would kind of idea/thought/plan would be worth of sharing?

Have I never seen or thought anything worth sharing? Sounds bad. Or do I constantly have ideas and observations which would deserve sharing and which I fail to share because I do not understand the value of those ideas and observations to us all? It is a real pity if this is the case.

Let us develop our understanding - what to share and to who

The very idea of any organization is the capability to work together and thus produce more together than as compared to working as separate entities and individuals. Apparently the ability to think together will become more and more important all the time, gradually working means more and more thinking. One element in this working and thinking together is the ability to understand what to share. I suggest that in every organization we could pause to think what kind of principles and practices of sharing are such which we wish to develop in our particular organization. That would create a basis to start to proceed towards sharing culture and practice. The journey will be challenging but certainly quite necessary for successful organizations.

 

I KNOW - AND SO DO YOU

Brothers and sisters, in the matters of knowing we must remember and maintain reasonable modesty. We do not know all, and in particular we do not know what is the situation where our brothers and sisters operate.

This magnificent internet era provides a possibility to watch different presentations. Also many of us hear a lot of key notes and speeches in different events. And organizations are full of inspiring executive talk and all kinds of models developed by experts in headquarters. Often the speaker and/or developer really seems to know her/his topic - which is just great. But sometimes the modesty does not seem part of picture. And as you can guess I am talking about the modesty in a very special way. What I mean with modesty here  is epistemological modesty. Epistemological modesty gives to a speaker an acute sense to understand what s/he knows - and what s/he does not know. Epistemological modesty suggest that we cannot create understanding for others, they will do it by themselves, if they choose to do so.

You see, around every person there is a kingdom of knowledge, where that person by herself/himself is the master. Let us look at the following picture. In that picture there are four main elements: 1) a person,  2) her/his kingdom of knowledge (green marks), 3) the world of daily work (the world of everyday discussions, etc.), 4) new ideas (red marks). Also there is a picture of a torch on the left, that is a symbol University of Jyväskylä and in general a symbol of understanding.

The general idea in this picture is that in our daily work we talk and handle issues which rather familiar to us. Hence the area of daily work is the easy area for us. It is the area which provides continuation to our life. When we want to learn, change and develop we often think that what we need are new ideas. That is all fine, new ideas are very important. But please take a notice, here new ideas are not yet our own ideas. We are still in a listening mode.

Hence, even more important than new ideas are those matters which are very, very close us. These matters, which belong to our kingdom of knowledge,  are such which we can really change if we just possess the understanding, knowledge, will and energy to do so. These matters can be very practical things i.e. our ways of acting in different situations, or they can relate to our understanding, values, etc.

And here lies the crux of development. We must create settings where people are willing and capable to use new ideas in their own kingdom of knowledge. You might think that this is easy and something which happens almost automatically. I dare to propose that we must not overlook these things, not personally and not when we wish to develop organizations.

So whenever we speak, no matter from which position we speak,  we have to remember the epistemological modesty. This means an attitude. "I know - and so do you". In practical terms this means that we genuinely invite people to speak their truth and share what is essential and possible in their kingdom of knowledge.

This is the route to dialogue which may provide something new to us all.