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.