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.

Silence and management - part 5

…text about Silence in organization continues - this is part 5.

4.    Why people choose silence

This is not a typical empirical paper, so I will not publish any statistics how silent people are in different situations. I have not measured the level of silence in meeting rooms with technical instruments, or I have not counted how many words are said in the auditorium when CEO has introduced her/his new strategy agenda. On the other as a breathing (and sometimes thinking) person I have experienced, wondered, listened and encountered different levels of silence in numerous organizational occasions.

 

 In fact, it might be interesting as such, to do some clever measurements about silence in organizational context. Without being too serious at this point, one might for instance measure how the level of silence develops during strategy process. Perhaps it might possible to draw some silence profiles, so that in a successful strategy process the silence profile follows certain pattern and in those strategy processes which are not so successful the silence profile might follow different kind of pattern.

Certainly this discussion about silence profiles is very tentative by its nature and it has more a thought provoking role than anything grander. However, what we are talking here is not a joke of any kind. I would propose that any competent leader is very keen to follow how silence (thus in the way the silence profile) develops in her/his organization. S/he will not use technical apparatus for the measurement, but I am sure that s/he uses all his perception and thinking capability to understand what is happening in her/his organization.

But why people choose silence, let us tackle that conundrum.

4.1 Silence - the whole picture

Therefore what I try to do next is that I suggest a whole picture of a silence in organizations. I am fully aware that “whole” is insurmountable word, impossible to achieve. In addition I do not try to present any kind of fixed or well established total picture of silence. What I try to do is outline a very preliminary taxonomy which would capture this phenomenon as well as I am able to do at the moment. It would be a sheer pleasure if someone would use this taxonomy and develop it further or changed in completely.

The point in presenting this taxonomy is to try to understand why people may choose silence in different situations in different organizations. What is also important here is try to understand how silence could be approached from the managerial perspective. Here this perspective means a desire to improve the possibility for an organization to succeed. It is proposed here that those managerial actions which lower the level of silence are such interventions which create new potential for an organization to thrive.

The suggestion for whole picture of silence in organization includes four main areas which are all discussed in the next blog posts.

 

Silence and management - part 4

…text about Silence in organization continues - this is part 4.

3.    Silence vs darkness

 

Let us still deepen our understanding of silence by taking a one new and particularly intriguing perspective on silence.  As we noticed in the previous chapter silence is related but not restricted to our hearing ability and thus to our ears?  Partly silence means that we do not hear anything but silence also means many other things. This is really intriguing. Wikipedia opens its silence entry with the following lines:

Silence is the lack of audible sound or presence of sounds of very low intensity. By analogy, the word silence can also refer to any absence of communication, including in media other than speech.  Silence is also used as total communication, in reference to non verbal communication and spiritual connection. Silence also refers to no sounds uttered by anybody in a room or area

One way to deepen our understanding about silence is to ask that are silence and darkness comparable concepts. One might think so, because the other refers to hearing and the other to seeing.  One might think that silence prevails when you do not hear anything, and darkness prevails when you do not see anything. You might think that these concepts are sisters or brothers on the semantic[1] sense, but they seem to be very different. In particular the connotations which relate these words are surprisingly different.

Please test this by yourself: silence vs. darkness. Please stop for a while to reflect these two words. How they are similar? How they are different? What would you propose?

One answer in my mind is that for some reason silence appears to be both very positive concept (happy, joyful, awe, refers to deep wisdom etc.) and word which brings with it very negative connotations (sad, even bad because the lack of caring, fear, etc.).

On the other hand the connotations which relate to darkness appear to be predominantly fearsome, sad and even evil.  Again I turned to internet and searched for pictures which were related to darkness. In one picture there was a following evocative sentence which appears to capture the message which was present in numerous pictures:

                      “It's not the darkness we are afraid of,

                       it's what lays within the Dark we fear!”

It actually seemed that one major line of approaching darkness in numerous pictures was that there is something dangerous in the darkness and our heroes go there for us and fight the fight for us.[2] The message seems to be that the fight would be too difficult to us hence we need a hero who is capable to face that foe and win our battle for us.

What can we learn from this discussion when we turn our attention to silence in an organization? At least one message is clear, we must not be too quick to think that silence is always a negative thing, just an item in liabilities. Perhaps there is more in silence, also when examined in organizational context. At least tentatively we must keep open the possibility that sometimes silence may also be - surprise, surprise - a success factor.

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[1] And again Wikipedia helps: Semantics (from Ancient Greek: σημαντικός sēmantikós)^[1][2] is the study of meaning. It focuses on the relation between signifiers, like words, phrases, signs, and symbols, and what they stand for, their denotation.

And internet help to find explanation for denotation: Denotation refers to the literal meaning of a word, the "dictionary definition."¨ For example, if you look up the word snake in a dictionary, you will discover that one of its denotative meanings is "any of numerous scaly, legless, sometimes venomous reptiles, a long, tapering, cylindrical body and found in most tropical and temperate regions."  Connotation, on the other hand, refers to the associations that are connected to a certain word or the emotional suggestions related to that word. The connotative meanings of a word exist together with the denotative meanings. The connotations for the word snake could include evil or danger.

 

[2] One very tentative thought why silence and darkness bring with them so different connotations. Let us think how language has developed in connection with human development. Let us think a hunter in the forest. Could it be that for her/him darkness was a negative thing, a predator could be close. And could it be that silence was a good thing, a one sign of safety.

Silence and management - part 2

 

1.2 The level of silence as a success factor in organizations

The loudly touted wisdom in business world today advocates that in order to do good work everybody should share all kinds of things to their colleagues and networks and in general everybody should work in a transparent way.  It has been proposed that this kind of action would help the whole organization to grow to its full potential.

We can apprehend how beneficial it would be if people would actively and openly think, plan and act together. This sounds both understandable and acceptable, because organizations are networks of people and in case people decide to choose silence (often, sometimes, in some special situations) and do not communicate at the level where they could the result will be that the whole organization may not work as well as it would be able to do. Certainly, there is always happening something important or people get new valuable insights and in case the information does not flow from people to people something valuable is missed. Sometimes that may an idea which could help to improve operations, sometimes we could offer something new/more to customer if just knew what someone in our organizations has seen, sometimes it is something else. Also what is important in general is the open dialogue where people create new understanding about everything important which relates to successful operations and development, that dialogue does not reach its full potential if a lot of silence prevails.

 

 

Hence, it makes sense to propose that a very important success factor for any organization is that key experts (often this means everybody) in any organization would share their ideas and observations with others.[1]  Apparently the basic idea would be that the more the better, ie. ever increasing sharing and transparency would be help the organization to thrive always better.

So, here we have one clear recipe for success, so let’s do it. This should be a pretty straightforward assignment, surely people should be happy to share and operate in a transparent way.  Sharing should be particularly easy assignment nowadays when there are technical solutions for open and sharing mode on action. As we know there exist excellent technological tools which can be used for sharing valuable insights from one to many and many people do the sharing in their private life as Facebook and other systems clearly demonstrate.

Yet, in real life in organizations people often seem to choose silence?  Why people choose silence?  Why this happens when we all know that voice would be an asset and silence like an element in liabilities, why we still may choose silence?  Do we have the freedom to choose either silence or sharing in real organizational life or what we are facing here? Let us deepen our understanding about silence. It appears to be a most intriguing element in human life.

...to be continued

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[1] But as always, also different views have been expressed. “I have often regretted my speech, never my silence.” Publilius Syrus Roman Writer (~100 BC)

 

PAST, PRESENT AND FUTURE - LINKED INEXTRICABLY TO EACH OTHER

PAST, PRESENT AND FUTURE

LINKED INEXTRICABLY TO EACH OTHER

It is very common to encounter  the following wisdom: live the present moment, what has been has been and no one knows what will happen in the future. There is a lot wisdom in this idea, albeit it may be impossible for us as human beings to obey that wisdom in our life. In fact, it might be even awfull if we would only live in the present moment - no memories, no future; or what an earth that wisdom might actually mean. The wisdom of living in the present moment can also be challenged on the ground that past, present and future link inextricably to each other. It may be that past, present and future are more the same phenomenon than separate entities.

As a person who has studied accounting and T accounts I shy away of proceeding into very deep philosophical discussion about time and life (and probably the philosophy on its part shy away from me). However, I try say something about the concepts of past, present and future and how those concepts relate to the organizational life. This is very, very fascinating.

Let us start by exploring how those concepts are inextricably linked. I would propose that no organization knows exactly how good it is, where it is and what it can achieve. Instead people within organization tell stories and through those stories these matters are somehow settled, not in very exhaustive and straighforward way but at least to some extend. This also tells why stories are extremely important. Through stories we understand who we are, what we have echieved and what we may be able to do in the future.

Hence to some extend our action is based on stories, through stories we have created an understanding what we have done, where we are now and what we can try in the future. We create an conception what avenues and goals are within our reach.

At the same time the above said reveals the inextricable linkage between past, present and future. In order to know where we are now at the present moment we have to examine and interpret our past and also look in the future. The present situation has different taste if we think that future is bleak or full of extremely promising opportunities. And when we look to the future our understanding of our past and present will affect what we consider possible to try and achieve in the future.

Could it be that our stories about our past and present could for example hinder us to see some avenues to proceed? Certainly. On the basis of our understanding what we have been able to do in the past we may not even consider some options which at least in principle could be within our reach. What we may give up because of our stories? What we do not even see because our stories do not sensitise us to look that kind of opportunities? What new possibilities we might detect if we changed our stories?

Stories are powerfull tools in organizational life. So, will you tell the same old story in your next meeting? In case you decide to modify your story, do you think that you are still true to yourself? Good stories are not lies, they do not lead us to troubled waters, instead they help us to succeed in the future. And in case you have not been that active in storytelling front should you reconsider your position. Your stories could be worth of gold.