Is this a or the strategy?

Strategy points to the future, and often strategy talk envisages growth and development. Could we actually say that these two are the elementary elements which establish THE strategy. First, THE strategy, and therefore any strategy talk is prone to revolve around a view toward the future. It could be said that strategy is about future. Secondly in this typical strategy talk the second element is positive growth and development. Typically THE strategy talk advocates the idea that the target or object of strategy work - which can be sometimes part of the world, sometimes our organization or department or perhaps some unit in our organization - is described to become much better than what it is now, thanks to THE strategy.

 

Do these elements encapsulate the essential essence of any strategy? Is this actually THE strategy, the very thing which is repeated in numerous situations in numerous presentations and talks with some minor adjustments and context related words and terms?

 

Let us see. Would it make sense if some strategy talk would not revolve about future but about the past. Sounds a bit odd. Would it make sense if some executives would present a strategy where things go downhill? Again sounds worryingly odd. However, before we completely ignore these odd sounding strategy talk options, we must dare to look what is happening in the real world. Are countries, regions, organizations and all different entities and units constantly climbing towards ever increasing success? Unfortunately not, it almost seems that journey downhill is almost as common event as ascent to the next level of success.

Hence could it also make sense to talk about past and also about problems, possible reasons of not succeeding, when we would talk about strategy. Should we in a way change a tone of whole strategy discussion. In this changed tone we would talk more about real people, real organizations and real challenges on the market place, and perhaps a bit less about plans, goals and aspirations. Here I am first to emphasize that striving towards improvement, and therefore things like Inspiring goals and challenging aspirations are of course elementary part of strategy and sensible strategy work.

So let us first take a setting where strategy discussion would not ignore past, but would actually very carefully analyze what we have achieved and what we may not have reached, why we have done what we have done. It is very likely that a lot what has been real and possible for us so far will continue to be true to us in the future. Many of those things which define us as people and as actors in organizational context, will continue to define us 1st of January, when new strategy season starts. And again I am first to emphasize that change is possible and actually everything is changing all the time. Also genuine decision making and choosing new paths to proceed are elementary parts of sensible strategy work. Yet the arrow of time in strategy talk should not point solely to the future, understanding past which still defines us and  the way we can perform our combined organizational effort is also very, very important.

How about the second element of THE strategy, typically a very heavy emphasize of growth and development and a tendency to gloss over problems and challenges. Certainly sometimes diminishing sales and other downturn features are included into strategy talk, often these are such issues which people already start to see in a similar way. However perhaps we should really try to uncover problems and challenges as early as possible and even raise up issues which are not nice and which are not yet generally recognized and which are also still heavily debatable. That would offer an opportunity to start to create profound new understanding about the changing real world and thus create a basis to start to do corrective measures as soon as possible, well before "the shit hits the fan" as the profound saying evocatively expresses the phenomenon.

 

Hence a neat and clear arrow pointing up and the future is not THE strategy. Strategy is tough work in real world and strategical decisions must be constructed on real world events and complexities. Strategy does not hide, strategy uncovers and reveals. Hiding would mean a movement from a real world into the world of plans and aspirations. Real strategy keeps the complex reality in the front and as clearly visible as possible. In that world strategy is a powerful tool that may eventually mean that the desired movement up and forward becomes really possible, and climbing to the next stratum of success happens in real world not solely in hopeful plans.

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.

 

Why it takes so long - organizations and the lacking agility

Organizations are extremely important. They are those institutions where we create things and services. It is vitally important how effective those organizations are. At the same time it is vitally important that those organizations offer excellent working conditions for us all. It feels somewhat awful to write something like this because when we think globally, the working conditions are certainly different in different places and at the same time there is room for improvement everywhere. To some extend it is almost surprising how little we as a human kind have been able to do in improving our living and working conditions throughout the history (and at the same time we are thankful for past generations of everything what they have created for us).


                                    


Could this somewhat slow progress of general development be explained partly so that we are not that clever in creating and running organizations which would provide results? Once again, there are extremely productive organizations but at the same time there seems to be organizations where "getting things done" take time - a lot of time sometimes.



In this blog the mountain gives a birth to a mouse, I have to admit that. This means that the opening paragraph hugs the world but what follows is something pretty defined, yet very important I think. What follows is an examination of something what I have sometimes encountered and which relate to the way how professional organizations operate. (Please note that a more explanation to the mountain-mouse expression is provided below).

It is always surprising to witness situations where almost everything seems to be ready  but then nothing happens. Quite often this "moment of petrifying" seems to take place just before to crucial moment, just before the phase where it would be possible to test whether the outlined and developed service/product would really work.

Here the term "really work" refers to that market reaction. What happens in the market defines whether the new service/product can succeed and develop. At some point organization must take this test and learn from their experience and make the necessary adjustments. Everybody knows this and yet - some times it really seems to take a lot of time before organizations take this crucial test and learn from it.

This phenomena of "why it takes so long" has made me to think following points:

The area of Agility

Organizations can not be agile and quick in everything. Metso makes world class paper machines, it can not start to make furniture very quickly (by the way this blog does not relate to Metso in any sense - the thoughts of this blog comes from working with totally different organizations than Metso). However, that Metso helps me to make this point succinctly, papermachines and furniture are different, clearly there are limits for reasonable agility. Having said that I take my comment back to some extend, it is a challenge to know what kind of an agility is most relevant for any particular organization. In fact, when we examine different organizations it may be the elementary strategic conundrum to define what are the areas where an organization should be quick in noticing new opportunities and creating new action. This question could be posed to any organization. What new opportunies could be relevant to Metso? What new opportunities are relevant and strategically important to an any organization which produces services to its customers.

It is important the every organization has an insightful and deepening understanding what it should be able to see and which are the areas where it needs to be quick and agile. What is the strategic area of agility?



                                  

Human side of Agility in organizations

It is always somewhat superficial to talk about organizations, we should always look deeper and try to understand how people think and act in any given situation. People create organizations, sometimes we are clever in creating organizational procedures and rules which make our organizations astoundingly effective, sometimes we play a role in creating organizations where things do not get done fast and effectively. (This sounds odd, how is this possible? It should not be in realm of possibility but the evidence seems to suggest otherwise - a closer examination of this phenomenon is needed in the future).

Hence it is always important to delineate whether people working in any organization are really interested and equipped to locate new opportunities? Do they have that kind of a mindset and is the organization around them such that it will support opportunity finding mode of working? Is that kind of an activity really encouraged in an organization,  or is it more a public statement? Does it really make sense to try something new? How the colleagues react when someone proposes something new?

Creating something new is rarely just a matter of individual insight, it is also a matter of shared interpretation where people create an understanding what the insight actually is and what it would mean to us to our organization. Hence, it is vitally important how the key people around "the event of insight" create room and support for new insight to develop and perhaps turn into action.

In Sum

The development and management work which aims to make organizations quicker and more agile is a worthy effort. It is of course a business issue but it also affects to the living conditions for all of us. I have a hunch that new technologies which are able improved connectivity between people will provide new ways to proceed and develop. Let us create organizations where it does not take that long to produce valuable services for people.


(An explanation to the mountain-mouse expression: When I started as Phd student many years ago, my professor once commented that in one of my research proposals a mountain gave a birth to a mouse - apparently what I promised to study was something huge, but the possibe results were not at the same level. That comment was pertinent, it was given so cleverly that it only motivated to move on and develop the proposal and to find some balance between promise and result).


                            
 

empty papers - what is strategy work

Empty papers in organization - what is strategy work?

Have you ever been in a meeting where you would talk about empty papers with your highly esteemed colleagues? Please do not deny this as such implausible scenario too easily. Let us image the setting where people sit around the table and they all have pile of empty papers on front of them. Let us envision further that they all are willing to present excellent comments concerning those papers. The comments are presented, debated even, but the papers remain empty. And perhaps the papers are taken to a next meeting where this happens again.







Well, I admit the above mentioned may have happened rather rarely in any organization. But let us change our approach a little bit. Have you ever been in a meeting where you talk about papers which probably will not change anything in your working life? And if you pause to think could it be that in that same meeting the papers under discussion will not change anything on the working life of anyone discussing about those papers. Have you experienced something like this? (Please tick the right option: never, sometimes, quite often, often, almost every time, always)

One question. Why do you talk about empty papers with your colleaques in different meetings? Is there a some force in play which make you to do it, or is there some special personal temptation that you crave to do it? Let us dig a bit deeper.

Do you think that it is really work to talk about papers which are not connected to anything in this world? Probably it can be called as work and even rather demanding work, but probably it is not that effective or productive to debate about empty papers. And yet, I would claim that to some extend empty papers are under discussion in many organizations and in numerous meetings all the time.






What I am proposing here is that meetings should not be about empty papers but about real issues. This appears obvious but it may not be so in real life and in real life meetings. Why this is the case is a very comlex issue and in order to be ready to answer to that question we really should go very deep in examining those forces which are in place in any organization and also to the ways how people see their work. That analysis escapes the limits of a single blog. However, I propose here something which might on its part make your organization and your meetings better. Could this blog on its part be a road sign, which helps you to find a way to meetings where the role of empty papers is as minimal as possible?

I suggest that in every meeting you should start the meeting with an open discussion and you would make it as certain as possible that all the participants woul feel as free as possible to voice their own opinions. Here I propose some questions which might help to develop your organization and your meetings. Perpaps you might actually to use the questions to some extend but of course the goal should be that gradually the culture in your organization whould become such where empty paper meetings would take as little time as possible.

The questions which could guide the discussion could be for instance following:

What are we doing

Why are we talking about these papers, what we wish to do with them? Do really see some relevant real life connections and consequences? What do we see, what is most important? What our discussion on the basis of those papers really mean in practice?

Connection to my working life

How the papers under discussion are relevant to me and to the other in that meeting? Should the relevance be so high that whatever we are talking about really mean or at least could mean something concrete to all of us or at least to some of us? In case the topics under discussion will not change anything relevent in some foreseeable future should we really talk about those papers? What we are really talking about then if the connection to reality is very vague? Why we are doing that kind of talking? At least the answer to these questions should be raised on the table.

Road ahead

In sum. The more I work with and withing organizations, the more I see that organizations could be much more effective, more agile and clearly better in providing valuable results and outsomes to people in this world. Often improvements would not add the workload for the people in that organization, probably quite the opposite.

I am very convinced that we are all doing important work when we try to make our dear organizations better. Let keep us doing that.

P.s.
While writing this blog it occured to me that Charles Handy has written an excellent book: The Empty raincoat, which I read years ago. If my memory serves, in that book he examines the role of us as real persons in organizations and whether there is room for us as individuals in the work life. In my blog I am in a way pondering whether real issues are really present and under discussion in our organizations. Is there room for facts and real issues in our meetings?