Strategy Changes - Techniques for an Executive in a Complex World
Change.
Such a small word that can invoke such a powerful response
from an organization – especially strategic changes. However, as executives, we must deal with new
information every day that evolves our ideas on the direction forward. Duke University’s Corporate Education program describes it as Complicated vs
Complex where living in ambiguity requires us to know how to navigate a complex
world. Knowing you are in a complex
context allows a strategic leader to apply different models to approach the
situation. These are significantly
different than when we are in a complicated context where it might be difficult
but typically the outcome and steps are already known. Watch Jonathan Gilbert – VP of Product and Tim Wasserman – Chief Learning Officer talk more about complexity and uncertainty
As the market changes around us regarding our competition or
customer preferences, do we allow our strategy to stay the same because strategy
evolution is difficult or possibly unknown when the need for an evolved strategy
is recognized? To stay the course when a
change is recognized is a death sentence for any company. It might be an even more painful death because
it drags the company into a slow decline by irrelevance as the world changes. Usually then the companies are sold off and
chopped up for various parts that might still have value.
None of my readers want this to happen so let me give a few helpful
suggestions that are basics to consider when evaluating the strategy forward.
Everything is on the Table
Ideas that might have been considered sacrilegious to even
consider in your company culture due to length of time you might have been
executing a project, customers that would be impacted, or revenue that would be
impacted needs to be on the table for discussion. When you are looking to move the company into
a stronger position for success, the team around you needs to feel comfortable
sharing their opinions and iterating on ideas for the best of breed to
emerge. When you have executives with
diverse backgrounds and experiences in a room you will be amazed at how ideas
evolve when being discussed. The plan
forward might be a draft and it is highly recommended that small test proof of
concepts be placed around the organization to test out theories. This leads me to a second recommendation.
Theorize – Pilot – Receive Feedback - Pivot
I find it important to have small experiments going on
across the various groups of my organization that allow for innovation and new
information to be fed back to me on results.
Sometimes some of our management team’s theories come back from the pilot
as a complete surprise and almost the opposite result that we envisioned. However, this is very valuable information
when we are charting new territory to allow us to Pivot quickly and determine where
we need to point the compass needle.
Usually from a strategic perspective these experiments are done by
trusted individuals but once our general strategic direction is set it is
locked. Afterwards, there are many
experiments that spread across the organization to make sure we remain agile in
charting course in the complex context, however, are general direction remains
the same as a North Star for the organization/company. Key here is to be able to experiment to validate
assumptions, find out key information, and for executives to be willing to
pivot their thoughts so strategy/actions match reality.
Wrapping it Up
If you are not willing to explore all options and not
experiment across your organization, it will be hard in some industries to keep
your leadership position as a product or company. An executive is required to adapt and be
willing evolve their thoughts over time with the willingness to make hard
decisions when necessary to continue success.
Ultimately, change never does stop and it is a necessity in order to be
at the forefront especially in technology.
Have you used any of these techniques successfully in your
own organization? I am very interested
in my readers comments!
0 Comments