We Are Redefining What It Means To Make Strategy

Getting To The Future

Chapter two - and so on until the programme is complete.

THE BACKDROP TO BUSINESS

The current or future scenarios that puts the ‘Dynamics’ into context. an ‘Exam Question’

DYNAMIC - A key influence - the force that impacts the business - its processes, behaviours and systems

INSIGHT - Critical aspects of ‘information’ - the part that provides unique clues to greater awareness and understanding

THE EXAM QUESTION

The overarching statement that sets the challenge / intention

OBJECTIVE - A specific aim or goal that informs actions - it explains 'WHAT' the business is aiming to achieve

KEY RESULT - The measurable 'HOW' for achieving an Objective (a key result can be either numeric or binary)

BUSINESS FOCUS AREA - The primary 'building blocks' of an organisation, the ‘places’ where the business can optimise performance and apply change - they become the levers the business can use to achieve change

OUTCOME - The consequence/result of actions taken against OKRs (Objectives & Key Results)

THE CRITICAL ASSESSMENT

A predefined logic model that allows us to reach a judgment on something

PERSPECTIVE - A perspective (lens) that exists within an assessment that maps to the logic.

LENS - A connected view of this information that has been filtered in some way to spotlight a particular issue. (Assessment is a Lens)

INDICATOR - A specific area where we will look for evidence for whatever we are assessing

KPI - The metrics used to measure outcomes

IMPERATIVE - A condition or state that is critical for success

I’m Not Sure. That’s My Strategy

The Future Is Entirely Unclear

More unclear than at any time.

In fact it’s far less clear than that. Nobody has any idea what might happen next week. By now you will have heard that right at this minute - the pace of change is the slowest it’s ever going to be in your lifetime.

Are you prepared?

Our world is no longer linear. Things happen at any time and from any direction and in sequences that things have never happened in before..

That also means anything can happen and it will. It will surprise you. What may also surprise you is how much it’s already happened. (E.G. Netflix vs. Traditional Broadcast TV). These things will happen so much and so often that it will become the new normal.

Are you ready?

From Now On

Without getting too complicated let’s refer to ‘from now on’ as an era of perpetual emergence. We had better get used to it because there’s no going back to good old linear.

For emergent you can also read random and chaotic. There’s a high probability that you are not designed for the future right now.

Are you awake to it?

A Typical Scenario:

Do any or all of these feel familiar to you?

• Important shifts in the market are becoming increasingly hard or impossible to go after.

• New entrants are starting up with far leaner businesses and doing more than you with new systems/business models designed for now.

• The talent we need to do what we know needs doing is impossible to find or afford.

• The market has stopped wanting what your system and processes delivered.

• Customers are increasingly paralysed by too many options and competing information.

• The marketplace (your customers) is influenced by media channels far beyond the reach of your firm.

• There’s probably more competition in your market now than at any time in history.

It’s time to think completely differently. There’s almost zero value continuing to develop/refine your legacy systems and investments. If you haven’t already built a different approach to the uncertain future then getting your people to wake up to it could be the smartest of moves.

Prepared? Purposeful? Responsible?

The Intention/Action Gap

In many businesses there’s an enormous gap between the intention and the action. The behaviour of the people and the systems they are built on are not fit for the coming onslaught.

We have to start with the premise of certain uncertainty. The best strategy is to get brilliant at imagining what might happen - then prepare being ready for that.

It’s not news that the basic capabilities required to survive in the near future are critical thinking, collaboration, communication and the ability to identify and exploit better connections.

A precursor to everything is being awake. Awake to these words and the concepts within them. Alive to the possibility they present and ready to grasp the future or sit back and watch it wash over you.

The philosopher John Dewey, often considered the father of modern day critical thinking, defines critical thinking as: “Active, persistent, careful consideration of a belief or supposed form of knowledge in light of the grounds that support it and the further conclusions to which it tends.”

The Four Things

In business, and if you’re a leader, your job is to steer the ship - or at least the part you are responsible for. Miraculously there are really only four ‘things’ you can be working on. Creating things, changing things, improving things or fixing things.

They’re extremely tough things. The minute you think you’ve nailed any one of them - everything will change again. It’s emergent remember.

“Futurists predict that we will experience 20,000 years of progress in the course of the 21st century. Are you ready for it?” - Beth Comstock

Being ready for it is the right question.

It’s why we argue that preparedness is the only strategy. Each of the four things can be dealt with a similar approach. At a high level anyway. Weird huh?

“The Strategic Toolkit’s most valuable application is responding to the challenges of the business today at the same time as preparing for the uncertain future - tomorrow.”

The Key Dimensions Of Strategic Intention

The eleven things below solve each of the four things above.

They are not that linear - but yes, the numbers are.

ONE - What’s The Point?

Decide why the ‘thing’ is worth doing in the first place. Whether it’s creating a business, transforming one, seizing an opportunity or solving a problem - you have to be able to say what the aim is in a sentence or two.

What’s the purpose? And is that sustainable?

TWO - Understand The Current And Future Context

Knowing what’s going on around the thing - sounds an obvious thing to do. But for many linear thinkers it’s been a secondary thing. The forces that exist ‘around’ us either helps or hinders progress.

You may not fully understand them at first - that’s OK. You need to master these forces. It’s a topic to start obsessing about. You have to try and plot what’s coming down the track and from multiple directions.

You can’t do anything in splendid isolation. You would fail. Reflect on what’s happening and what might happen after that.

THREE - Know Those Moving Parts

Figure out what ‘assets’ you’re currently playing with - all the parts. Develop a good relationship with those bits. They are supposed to be under your control. They all come together to make the business work (or maybe they get in the way). Depending on your situation some of them may be obstructing achievement.

Good or bad - everything will be on the ‘blueprint’.

FOUR - Get Inside The Complexity

Meet the devil in the detail - make friends with it. Implications, dependencies - the stuff between the things. Figure out why things work and obsess about why they don’t. Start to imagine if they are good for the future or if they will hold you back.

This level of understanding will pay back several times over.

FIVE - After A While - Establish The Reality

This takes time. Reflection and looking at things from differing perspectives isn’t as easy as it sounds. A baseline will eventually emerge. Principles and standards will start to make make sense. These will emerge as more solid ideas that just start to make complete sense.

From this foundation the future will really start to emerge.

SIX - Identifying The Vision

Now comes the future. The idea of what’s possible and smart to do (or be) on the other side.

The team should now be firing. Inspiration should be the order of the day. A new story is emerging. It doesn’t just make sense to us inside the firm. It isn’t just convenient - it feels like it’s the future.

It feels like it can withstand whatever we can imagine. This would be truly incredible if we could pull it off. It’s how we need to think and work in time.

SEVEN - Assessing Capabilities

Throughout it all we’ve been getting a better idea of our strengths and weaknesses. Some people may be better placed. We’ve identified many gaps. We know what we need. But above all we know why we need them. Internally as well as externally. We’ve added all this to our blueprint.

We’ve identified roles we need to develop the future, sustain what we’ve done and make sure we are prepared to change again as required.

EIGHT - Developing Remedies

To make sure we achieve what we’ve set out we need to create the plans for considered solutions and execution. We will have to communicate them.

As John Dewey said - “Active, persistent, careful consideration of a belief or supposed form of knowledge in light of the grounds that support it and the further conclusions to which it tends.”

These are the tools and activities we’ve decided are required to achieve the outcomes. These are the strategies and themes through which everyone will carry out the plans.

NINE - Supporting Tools

The business needs to communicate and collaborate. This is the lifeblood. The business must stay aligned and supported as the solutions are executed. Systems and processes need to be in place.

Apps, technology and techniques need to be agreed to help the programs come to fruition. This way everyone can stay connected and alerted as needed to activities and progress. Insights can be shared - achievements celebrated.

TEN - Ensuring Stakeholder Alignment -

We must involve every audience at the appropriate times. It’s advisable to start this (and have a plan for communication) at the outset. The communication of progress, opportunities, celebrations of achievements and above all management of expectation.

ELEVEN - Executing And Sustaining

The real test is making it happen. And keeping it happening. If we did everything above properly then this should happen without any trouble. Everyone would be in the right mindset and aware of what’s happening next.

With the appropriate tools and appreciation in place the management and monitoring of all the initiatives the plan can be executed accordingly. The inevitable corrections will be monitored and implemented.

“The Strategic Toolkit’s most valuable application is responding to the challenges of the business today at the same time as preparing for the uncertain future - tomorrow.”

Examples Of The Program Guides We Build In Some Cases

Getting teams ready to engage and stay aligned to the assignment goals.

We’re Always Connecting Things

Let’s first define ‘thing’ - ‘an ‘object’ (collection of things) that one need not, cannot, or does not wish to give a specific name to.’

Every organisation is made up of things. Historically we’ve split them up in order to manage them more easily. We split Marketing from Sales. We split HR from Technology. That may have worked OK in the past when the pace was slower.

This model is mostly disastrous for the future. That’s because the pace of ‘technology’ change (e.g. digitalisation, automation) outstrips humans ability to transform all the things.

The solution is not simple. Especially if you’re responsible for developing strategies.*

Running a business isn’t for the faint-hearted. It has a lot of things. It’s also a confusing mix of frustration and exhilaration. The pressure is constant. It’s not for everyone. Things come at you from every direction. New technologies, market expectations, competitive threats, fashions and fads.

Each of these ‘things’ is important and they aren’t disconnected. It doesn’t matter what industry or type of business - we are dealing with similar components. Systems. Capability. Processes. Skills.

“If you think it’s simple, then you have misunderstood the problem.” - Bjarne Stroustrup

*A strategy (calculated plan) is developed to achieve a given vision or aim. It will be built to improve, transform, disrupt, enter/develop new markets. It is the blueprint/guide to address/solve any kind of business challenge.

All Things Considered

Understanding things properly is a challenge for everyone. We lack the time and attention. There’s an incredible amount of information coming at us. We are the subject of countless new channels and media types (platforms)

There’s always a clamour for tools and techniques to help us cope. These are fine but (like millions of tools and techniques that have gone before) they need to be understood and applied properly.

Our attention span is so limited our patience for complex things is dangerously short. Our own capacity for different interpretations and perspectives (on everything) is dizzying.

We’ve been worrying about all this for a long time. Almost forever. It’s not been easy to solve.

The problems that organisations have to create the required change is directly related and proportional to these dynamics. It’s not the technology or the systems but the people that find it hard to change.

“The definition of genius is taking the complex and making it simple.” - Albert Einstein

We’ve developed an approach, the logic and the tools and techniques to help our clients think through and execute a strategy that will really work. The Group Partners Strategic Toolkit - GPSTK

“The Strategic Toolkit’s most valuable application is responding to the challenges of the business today at the same time as preparing for the uncertain future - tomorrow.”

Organisations Are Complex Ecosystems.

Beyond all the technology, processes and systems - every business is made up of a diverse mix of human beings. And because of the way we’ve split the business up each ‘division’ of the business has a different perspective.

These are fiercely defended because livelihoods depend on them. Each area of the business develops its own different agenda. Over time there emerges a mix of complementary and competing demands. We make everything more and more fragmented.

“Every one of us is unique. We may share some common traits and beliefs but we are shaped by very different contexts.”

The Cultural Thing

Whenever a collection of people get together they will cause a fresh set of dynamics. Human beings form tribes, new norms are established, loyalties are pledged, common interests start to form They create ‘natural’ connections that reshape how they work and the commitments they make to themselves and the organisation. This is where formal working practices are easily replaced by the informal - unless they make perfect sense and genuinely help people do their job.

“Over time the business will form its own identity. The sum of all the parts dominates that of any individual.”

The forces shape what we call it culture. Effectively this is the DNA of the Organisation - a mixture of behaviours and values, beliefs and opinions. The DNA of the business can conflict with that of an individual.

That’s what happens.

In Search Of The Holy Grail

Although almost always on the wish list, there’s no single view possible of such a complex/dynamic business landscape. Leaders have to assess choices and explore issues through a range of lenses and from vastly different perspectives.

‘There’s a lot of things to think about.’

It stands to reason that some things only need occasional attention. Other things need to be on a constant watch list. We have to be specialists and generalists. We have to see the big picture at the same time as diving into specific detail.

Standing To Intention

Alignment - another ambition for leaders. And once again it feels compelling but often remains a dream.

In the complex reality of the world, absolute alignment is a rare state - the system is persistently in flux. The dynamics shift so the organisation has to respond. That’s the law of organisational physics.

The organisation has a powerful anchor though. The anchor of intention. All organisations exist for a reason. As the organisation becomes increasingly transparent to all stakeholders the business needs to operate with a purpose. Nowadays, that has to go beyond just making a profit for its shareholders.

‘Ideally the business purpose is in complete harmony with the needs of all of the stakeholders that it represents.’

A purpose-led business is conscientious. It cares about its consumers as much as it recognises the need for ethical and moral decisions. It has to make the right decisions about resources and vote with respect for its people and the communities it affects. It requires the business to deliver value and appreciate the impact it has - in many different ways.

“Changing how we think, what we think and the actions we take”

The Critical Factors

ONE - Integrity of Intent

“Changing how we think, what we think and the actions we take”

You have a vision for a future - a vision that is different somehow. Whatever your idea is, it changes things for the better. It describes a world that looks and feels a certain way because of your initiative. You presumably believe it has value and will create impact - and that the world needs it.

You really want others to feel your passion and buy into your version of the future. How inspiring is your vision for others? Can you bring it to life for them? You need to get others as excited and inspired as you are by this Vision.

This means you need to be able to put that Vision into a context. A context that will resonate with others. This means you need to be 'solving' for something. Either you are addressing a problem or bringing a new opportunity to life.

Your Vision has to have purpose. Having a purpose - a mission - is great. But do you fully understand this 'issue'? The world is full of good intentions leading to unintended consequences. Consequences that mean you have solved the wrong problem - or introduced new problems, and followed false promises of potential. Potential that never materialised.

• How good is your insight on this topic and anything that influences it?

• How deeply have you explored this and from how many perspectives?

• Would you say you have an appreciation of the causes, not just the effects?

• What are you basing your insights on?

• How objective is that source of information?

Knowing what's driving you and causing the energy for everything is a vital baseline. You need to know the cause and catalyst for all this and why and what is driving you. Without that it's hard to have an honest conversation or make the best possible choices - rational thinking quickly gets hijacked by carefully crafted arguments to suit agendas.

• Have you asked yourself exactly why you are committed to this Vision?

• Are you driven by circumstances that no longer hold true?

• Are you convincing yourself because that's just convenient.

• What motives are shaping the way you think about this vision?

• What do you really want out of this?

• What pressures or beliefs are leading you in this direction?

• How do you justify those pressures?

If you are intent on changing something then you need to know what you expect to achieve and how things will look or feel different. There has to be a tangible result, something that tells you and others that you have succeeded - and that others see as valuable.

Those outcomes - combined with the drivers influencing you - set the bar when it comes to your ambition. You have to state just how big a prize are you shooting for and where are you most likely to invest effort in being successful.

• How will you tell if you have been successful?

• How far can you take your vision?

• Will you be realising a series of outcomes along the way?

• What stories can you tell about the short term achievements vs the end result?

People like to see actual change happen in order for them to believe in the longer game.

You will have to convince people that this is real - that change is going to be tangible and to know where to expect to see value. Value has many different identities and is not always quantifiable. You will need to be very clear as you set expectations with stakeholders. You have to be able to state what they can look forward to and how value will show up to them as individuals or entities.

• Where will you get the evidence that you really have achieved what you set out to achieve?

• How measurable are your outcomes?

• Do you take account of the intangible value as well as the tangible?

TWO - Insightful and Authentic Connection

Before you can be certain you will convince others that yours is the vision to get behind you need to know enough about these 'others'.

• How much effort and energy will you invest in really getting to understand them - their mindsets, attitudes, needs and preferences?

These are real people, just like you whose lives are already full of many choices they can make. They are constantly inundated with information being fed to them and living with their own pressures and drivers. This is all shaping what they think about.

Beware of generic and superficial stereotyping and making convenient assumptions! Don't stop at the people who you want the most direct connection with. In fact, don't stop at people.

Whatever your proposition, it will be impacting more than just your customers. And even if it's not top of your list, these impacts may be high on the agenda of the people you want to attract.

• How much do you think about the less obvious stakeholders?

• Who - or what - does your proposition impact across the value chain? Do you actually know your supply chain?

• Are you thinking about how you can have a positive impact - or at least the least harmful?

These people (your stakeholders) are influenced by what's going on around them. That will vary quite considerably depending on where they live, the dominant value systems at play, the most significant influences on their lives and their general state of mind and well being.

• What (or who) is it that is grabbing their attention?

• Why should they care about your insights into the challenge or opportunity that has captured your imagination?

• How do the current hot topics align with your vision and intentions?

There is no getting away from the role relationships play in any endeavour. Belief, Trust and Confidence lead to shared commitment and transparency. This is all absolute vital to a successful outcome.

The sooner strong bonds are created the less risk there is of misunderstanding and misaligned expectations. Avoidance of those common causes of breakdown requires honesty and clarity. It's never easy when there are always going to be different perspectives and definitions to align.

Knowing as much as you can about your stakeholders is one thing, they equally want to know about you. This relationship is critical. Interested parties will need to know what you stand for and the type of organisation that you represent.

• How strong is your bond with your own organisation?

• Will your culture resonate or conflict with the people and organisations you most want to impress?

• How 'like minded' are you really?

• What 'norms' shape the behaviours and attitudes of your organisation?

THREE - Propositions Worth Caring About

Ideally your vision is developing at just the right time, you have a golden opportunity to tap into something that is answering an emerging need - or better still - that is just ahead of anyone realising there is a need.

Of course this is only likely if you have been an avid explorer of your market, your adjacent markets and the latest tech trends that have the potential to shake up any industry.

• How much are you investing in innovation and R&D?

• Where on the spectrum is your proposition? - where the spectrum starts at tried and tested and ends somewhere around 'never imagined'

• Are you fixated on your current competition or the fresh start ups?

• Will your business models support you in the future

Mutual admiration and respect is great but to build a valuable relationship that helps to achieve your aims requires that you have something that others actually want or need.

Even if they don't realise it yet.

A proposition has to be much more than clever marketing and creative strap lines. There are no shortage of those, and while they may well attract attention they won't attract real engagement if they aren't backed up by something that offers real value.

• How well do you know the customers you are targeting?

• How varied are their needs?

In a world where information is coming at us from everywhere and attention is incredibly short we are competing on value, quality, differentiation and relevance. There needs to be a pretty good reason for them to take notice of what you are saying to them.

• How different is it anyway?

• Have you proven it?

• Can you deliver it and keep your promises?

• Will it pass the AIDA test (Awareness, Interest, Desire, Action)

• How easy will it be for your customers to take advantage of your proposition?

FOUR - Responsibility For The Future

Sustainability is a word that has been on everyone's lips forever. It's a word that needs a clear definition in each case, there is no single definition even if we would like to think there was.

Every business wants 'to be sustainable' - in most cases they mean they want to stay in business, the self-serving definition of the word. Fortunately, a growing number want that word to mean more than that, they are recognising how big a part business has to play in the sustainability of our world, our planet.

But even then many definitions are based on a limited appreciation of the impact we are having right now or a clear understanding of the actual issues we need to address.

• What does sustainability mean to you?

• What responsibility do you feel your business has when it comes to sustainability?

• Do you know the impact you have right now on the environment and the communities you operate in?

Given the current attention on issues like Global Warming and Mass Extinctions, people are demanding that more is done and that change happens quickly. Soon the different definitions of sustainability will become irrelevant - to stay in business you will have to prove you deserve to be there.

• Have you ever mapped your goals to the UN Sustainable Development Goals (or an equivalent)?

• If not would you consider that? And how aligned would you be?

• Which global targets do you most associate with?

• What are you committing to beyond your own success?

• What do your workforce and local community expect from you?

• How will you ensure you honour your commitment?

At the business level staying relevant is going to be one of the biggest drivers for long term success. That is going to require the right mix of capability (which assumes the right mindset as much as the right skills) and a continuous commitment to evolution - to staying in touch with the way society is changing.

• Are you equipping yourselves for the future or just immediate needs?

• Are you designed in a way that will even attract the right talent?

• Do you know what talent you need to achieve your vision?

• Do you know where you would find that talent?

FIVE - The Means to Succeed

Having the passion and imagination to realise a vision is a great foundation. However, at some point you have to be able to convert that into a reality. If your vision is ambitious and leading edge you are going to need help and quite possibly skills that you would not typically employ yourselves.

• How good are you at partnering and collaboration?

• How broad and diverse can you make your talent ecosystem?

• Do you have something to offer the talent that you need?

• Are you clear what you want from them?

• Will they be attracted to your proposition?

• Are you looking at the implications for your Operating Model?

This is an opportunity to think differently about capability and resource, about the way you equip yourself to realise your vision. The biggest overheads for any company traditionally are people and infrastructure.

You still need them but the way you think about systems and technology can be very different. Different enough that it can be done in ways that are supportive to people and the environment, as well as creating value for your business. Organisations are proving it today.

• How 'current' are your core systems?

• Is technology a key element in your thinking?

• What is going to keep you true to your culture?

We are living in an information-rich period and yet we still struggle to build meaningful insight a lot of the time. As our access to data grows, our attention span and desire to engage in complex topics diminishes. Information lives literally everywhere and some of the most valuable is never there when you need it.

There is a critical balance to be achieved between open and unstructured approaches and disciplined and structured. Neither end of this spectrum is going to serve well.

• What tools are being utilised to harvest important information?

• Do you have clarity on what the important data/information is?

• Have you considered the value in building accessible insight?

• How much is the sharing of insight encouraged?What kind of environment will you offer?

SIX - Adaptable Progression

Vision traditionally gets followed by Strategy which then gets converted into a plan and/or a roadmap. You have a plan forming and you know roughly what you need to do - or do you?

The relationship between Strategy and Operations has always been pretty tenuous. For many an organisation, they exist in completely distinct worlds of their own. Some people 'do strategy' while everyone else 'gets on with their jobs'. If those focused on their day jobs actually got to hear about the vision and strategy it was probably at some kind of formal event - one that was trying to communicate a vital message to a large group of (sometimes carefully selected) people with very different needs and perspectives.

It's no wonder we forget why we are doing certain things - assuming we ever really knew. No vision or carefully crafted strategy is going to last long if the people who are actually going to do the work have no real connection to purpose.

• Can you - and your teams - always map activities back to vision and intention?

• How often do the vision and strategy get discussed?

• How real do you make it for people?

• Do you celebrate achievement?

• Do you 'own up' to mistakes?

At some point along the way reality kicks in and things change so much that we lose that line of sight back to our original Intent - assuming we have managed to maintain that.

Day to day pressures, new dynamics and curveballs can easily derail progress. The more disconnected strategy and operations are the harder it is the maintain focus on the longer term aims.

It's inevitable that circumstances change. With that come new drivers. That doesn't mean the vision needs to be dismissed, at least not without some reflection and consideration.

What does matter is the ability to navigate certain disruptions and distractions and to adjust accordingly? If that means changing the vision as well then that is the right thing to do - but change it, don't just forget it. And then realign everything else to that vision. Change interim outcomes and priorities and shift to the new tracks.

• How well do your processes and systems handle change?

• How often do you realign strategy and current activities?

• How do you decide when it's right to deviate from the plan?

• How is the impact across the organisation assessed?

• What flags/interventions do you have to alert you to the need to revisit plans?

• What is your approach to evaluation/learning?

Having that clarity of outcome is critical now - without that, it becomes much too easy to measure progress by things that are done - regardless of the impact they have.

In an ideal world, everyone is so engaged and supportive of the vision that their actions are always governed by a shared intention and ambition. We don't live in an ideal world though and so we need models that work - without making them someone's full-time job to police - that is how bureaucracy emerges.

• Do people understand and appreciate why they are doing what they are doing?

• How do you know you are making the right progress?

• How do you measure impact?

• What do you do if you are not achieving what you expected when you expected?

• How do you keep people accountable to the vision and strategy?

“The Strategic Toolkit’s most valuable application is responding to the challenges of the business today at the same time as preparing for the uncertain future - tomorrow.”

 A Method In Our Approach

We aren’t crazy fans of methods.

They can often be more interested in themselves than the task they set out to perform. As long as everyone stays open to valuable outliers that defeat most methods then we are good to go.

Ours goes like this.

Anchoring Intention - We will only ever be able to engage if we’ve agreed the challenge at hand. Whether a problem or opportunity let’s give it a name. We call the challenge the ‘exam question’. It can change as we evolve along the program. Fresh ones will get applied to differing facets of the challenge accordingly.

1. Covering All Areas - The 10 symbols and labels in the centre of the graphic cover the areas implicated in any self respecting strategy. Once again definition is crucial but we’ve developed a thorough scope for each area and again they are inextricably linked within and between each other. All these are, to a greater or lesser extent, always covered in every challenge we’ve ever come across. They will always feature over the course of developing any program.

2. Fundamental Information - We will seek answers to each of the 10 areas. We will find the best ways to harvest existing intelligence. And we will cause conversation in order to deepen the understanding and appreciation of all of it. Every one of the 10 areas will be a discussion in one way or another. We always aim to make this as smooth a process as possible. This will be as collaborative and as valuable as we can make it.

3. Always ‘Framework’ - Throughout all this we will be forming ‘frameworks’. Whether they are purely for our own use - to structure the multi-faceted nature of it all - or to illustrate progress - frameworks are a fundamental tool in our toolkit. As we gather teams together to collaborate and co-create at specific times these frameworks will also guide the crucial team conversations.

4. Always Insight - As insight and valid information emerges these frameworks start to take on other uses. To inform the wider operation or key stakeholders of progress and to ensure we validate our own assumptions and design the strategy itself. To us frameworks are highly powerful mechanisms for proving whether systems will work, whether the direction is aligned across the multiple perspectives and whether we have material gaps that need solutions.

5. Identifying The Opportunity - It’s bound to happen that in developing new strategies there will be elements completely missing or in need of further development. (Gaps) This is likely to be where the big opportunities to improve will exist. If there weren’t then we would probably have failed. If material change doesn’t occur then the status quo would be maintained - the business would likely fail. The framework approach will bring these things into sharp focus. It will allow us to deep dive into these areas and bring them into focus as a valid part of the future plan.

6. Constantly Connecting - As this approach evolves we will be bringing to bear the six ‘tests’ - these test our earlier tests. They are in essence 6 mandatory tests for every leader today. They are a powerful measure and they guide how valid strategies should form. Once again we have in depth definitions that sit behind each ‘test’ and a wide ranging series of questions and conversations within them. As before they are connected both within and between each other and additionally to everything defined above.

In the representation you can see the 10 areas that are common to every business model. They are present in every business case and every business situation we’ve ever come across.

These areas are not ‘nice to have’ - they are essential.

They are not optional - they are present and need to be considered within every successful strategy.

The Devil Of Language

We accept that all these ‘things’ can be called by different names. Alongside each of them we’ve written a short definition.

As we’ve said the connection between these things and the integration of them with everyone’s perspective and our observations through indicators and tests we are in a far better shape to create the right answer to the challenge or opportunity our clients have.

Strategic Models

There’s a rational framework available to every business should they choose to use it.

The model itself hasn’t changed much over time. It’s common sense and logical. However, the ‘stuff’ inside it is constantly changing and that’s where complexity resides. Every organisation has its own set of choices to make and its own unique set of characteristics and dynamics to consider.

The role of the leadership is to constantly play with the parts.

• They declare their place in the world - they may call it a mission and/or a vision.

• They have a solution - a product or a service or both. Or simply a different way to solve a problem.

• They will develop a strategy for achieving their vision.

• They may well support all this with a business case/business plan.

• That plan will need to rest on a financial case and model.

• They will create a set of plans for getting there.

• They will delegate the work to people with rules about how things get done

The key to this is how strategy is conceived. It relies on how completely the team considers all the things involved. Then it matters how well they manage the execution and implementation. It becomes critical to the mission how well progress is measured and how well we adapt when circumstances change. That’s the measure to apply if your aim is a great outcome.

As a result, the model needs to arrange how the organisation is set up to perform its work. It has to calculate the skills and resources it feels it needs, (internally and externally). It has to construct the structure(s) required to make everything manageable. It has to integrate the systems and processes that people should follow to keep them 'compliant' with intention.

All of these create the ‘conditions’ within which things happen. How well we design it all will determine how well or how poorly we will deliver.

All strategies rely on insight. The better the insight the better the strategy. Simple.

Given the quality of the insight the greater our ability to make uniquely valuable decisions. The better the insights the more likely we are to use the information and knowledge we have to greater effect.

Armed with our structures and approach to the design of this information (map) we have the ability to spot patterns and deduce better clues from the many sources of information we have access to. And because we embrace different viewpoints and refer constantly to the indicators* we can make the best possible judgments.

*Indicators - That thing that indicates the state or level of something.

Approach Narrative

To get the best outcome from a program of work it’s important that everybody is engaged.

That means everyone involved understands the task and is aligned with the outcome we seek.

Creating strategies and solving complex problems is by its nature complicated.

We try, where possible, to avoid overpowering people with methodologies or jargon.

It’s easy to share too much information too soon.

Getting everyone ready without overwhelming people is always important for a successful outcome.

Every challenge begins with a clear expression of it - we call this the ‘exam question’.

The exam question will need to be answered in a robust enough fashion to cope with and emerge through the constant battering of the dynamics of the world.

Our approach is based on conversation, relevant questioning, reflection, impartiality, objectivity, critical thinking and visualisation.

In the initial period we (Group Partners) will be developing and introducing the key tools (assessments/scans), that will help us to answer the challenge.

These tools will help us establish the vision, start building a strategy, with all that that entails.

And as we emerge from these will start to identify the actions and activities to execution.

Each stage can have a variable length of time.

The stages are not linear steps - they build in richness - referring back and forth to previous activities and stages.

This depends on the type of challenge and the ability of everyone to get the work done.

Within each stage there are ‘assessments’ which increase our knowledge - they spark better questions and conversations.

These improve our understanding.

They give us the clues on current attitudes, mentalities and maturities.

We are starting to identify the important dynamics and the different perspectives of everybody involved.

In the second stage we are adding additional depth.

Because we now have more information we can create more informed stimulus materials.

We start to look at the future against a variety of backdrops - these are possible ‘future’ business scenarios.

We will develop the business and stakeholder landscapes.

These landscapes put everything we know into context and encourage further meaningful conversations

We will set up a collaborative platform so that everybody can work virtually and whenever required.

Working as a team we will build a rich and clear vision of the future.

This ‘vision’ will be a framework that ensures everybody is aligned and inspired.

Because it’s a visual ‘blueprint’ it forces us to have the same definition and meaning.

It ensure that we all have the courage, appetite and ambition to make it happen.

Integrity and resilience requires the connecting of the vision, the business and stakeholder landscapes to the organisation.

Through all this flows the DNA of the business that ensures the culture, values and human core is properly considered.

All dimensions above will be aligned before agreeing any actions and next steps.

Only then will we move to future stages.

This entire process is a collaboration.

We will be working both directly and remotely.

We will work through the conversations we generate.

We will infer, interpret and spark additional questions based on information that we receive.

Through facilitation, objectivity and co-creation we will develop the future together and arrive with a plan that everybody owns.

What Is A System?

A system is a set of ‘things’ working together. It recognises the interconnections and their dependencies and dynamics) in order to achieve an end. A system can sound quite mechanical but in the new world, it describes everything from society and the weather to the way we approach our work and arrange our capabilities to achieve the right result. 

The Risk Of Ignorance

Most people in business are paralysed by high degrees of complexity. The tradition is to ignore, resist, complain or deny complexity. The effect is to make excuses. These excuses seek to explain the lack of time or capability to deal with it. The consequences are that the business misses the opportunities buried within it.

Lost In Transformation - Getting Over The Language

The terms traditionally used in ‘strategy-making’ scare most people away. The strategy isn’t important, achieving the dream and ambitions is. The plan isn’t important the ways and means that move us from ‘here’ to ‘there’ in achievable ways is. Information and data aren’t important the value and meaning hidden within it are. Technology and tools aren’t important, the use we put them to is

The Challenge For Strategy

Every business exists in a specific and dynamic context. Everything is changing in real-time. For a business, creating the best path to the future is paramount. Whether overcoming a current challenge, exploiting an opportunity or creating a strategy to achieve a future vision, real-time change means chasing a constantly shifting target.

The Challenge For The Enterprise

Aligning any plan with a moving target requires hard work. Technology has a vital role here because it alone can handle the enormous amounts of information and countless moving parts implicated in the task. 

The Challenge For The Leadership

Smart people, in leadership positions with these challenges, start out with the best intentions. They convene a team, they start to gather the best information they can in one place, they aim to assess progress and they know they will need to sustain delivery. Each time the objective is to make a significant step-change in performance. But one tool (platform) does not exist.

The Challenge We Are Focussed On

Nothing, no single solution (or easily integrated set) exists that offers everything needed to help teams to work through and sustain strategic challenges. This results in risk, fragmentation and inefficiency. A major risk is the lack of integrity throughout the process of ‘making strategies’. Organisations themselves are designed in departmental silos and we see the consequences of that across everything from systems to industries. 

This causes additional challenges. Strategies must serve ‘across’ the enterprise. Fragmentation of the act of strategy making during its creation and implementation causes a considerable lack of performance.

• The lack of integrity of the information. 

• The inability to compare information in a unified fashion.

• Misaligned goals and priorities

• Conflicts over resources

• Unintended consequences

Technology - The Search For Utility

When it comes to the kinds of tools we need we are living through an era of rapid development. Increasingly there are new possibilities in this realm. 

This new era heralds the type of software that, if developed well, could automate a lot of what’s needed - taking what is relevant from collaboration software, information databases, program management tools, assessment techniques, the AI to help make calculations across large amounts of data, search technologies to bring up important files and documents, smart user interfaces that make working with complex (often scattered) information far easier - to get at the important connections, themes and insights.

The Strategic Tools That Teams Need

Teams creating and delivering strategy need to think. Throughout the thought process, they harvest, create, curate and act on information. They need to consider it, validate it, compare, synthesise and collaborate with each other to refine it. They need tools to help them comprehend and then move seamlessly to execution. 

They need to maintain it.

We Are Building A Platform - It’s Our Term. But It’s Overused.

“Platform is a business model that creates value by facilitating exchanges between two or more interdependent groups, usually consumers and producers.

In our case the platform is specific. It’s a strategic collaboration and maintenance mechanism. It is a system for enhancing the process of strategy making. Currently, plans are full of individual contributions. Organisations encourage, perhaps unintentionally, people to work in their own areas. There are interdependencies that no one view can see. Worse still it’s almost impossible to understand. This platform will move beyond the typical superficial or single-use social collaboration/project management platforms.

A System View:

The system will accelerate the effectiveness of teams working to develop the strategies and plans for the business by:

• Connecting the strategy-making process more systematically and remove the risk gaps.

• Removing the challenges placed on teams who currently use a variety of tools to achieve these ends. (or not)

• Providing a single place for all critical and strategic information. As time moves forward the context changes - therefore so does the information.

• Affording ease of access to the data required to calculate decisions and monitor the progress of the results.

• Enabling both structured and unstructured information to have value and be useful. 

• Enabling the recall and retrieval of insights that are found during the discovery and assessment phases of strategy development.

• Keeping teams focused on the right things

• Offering an objective assessment of any critical area of capability or progress

Equipped To Sustain And Maintain

Having everything in one place (or appropriately connected) makes a major difference. Technology allows us to get everything into one place and equip people in the business to sustain and maintain their strategic processes. 

• By displaying and enabling a better understanding of the complexity, the system can overcome the barriers and demonstrate the meaning and sense of what’s translated. 

• Such display and ability to access this information in a structured way gives users confidence and enabling them to approach issues more systemically.

Group Partners Role In All This

Group Partners applies structure and visualisation to help clients to improve their consideration and comprehension of their future. (thinking) These ‘futures’ are always individual (unique) to them. 

We have spent years applying frameworks as tools for thinking, organising complexity into meaningful future plans and transferring these to the clients for their ongoing use. The gap in this procedure has been a method for sustaining and maintaining the value of this intervention over time.

Working to create and deliver a business’s strategy is a full-time thing. Especially so the ongoing management of it. 

Group Partners Focus

We understand the space extremely well. We have been working with global clients and know what they all need to focus on - there are several ‘top-tier’ applications and challenges that clients need to solve for.

The non-trivial challenges that strategy needs to overcome.

1. Market relevance is the primary driver for the successful enterprise strategy.

2. Successful strategies must remain coherent over the long term.

3. Successful strategies must keep pace with fast changing dynamics

4. Coherent strategies must connect intention with operational readiness.

5. Sustainability is forever a primary outcome and intention.

There are many new software tools that proclaim to be invaluable in one dimension or another - but critically not all. Most are built to support dated concepts and ways of working.

Group Partners Platform Imperatives

This work is only meaningful when it gets applied.

That means:

• Applying new strategies, visions and plans demands commitment and sustained focus and investment.

• Any new tool or system cannot add to the burden of complexity only unburden it.

• The business must know where it’s headed. 

• The business must recognise the value and be prepared to undergo change in the way business thinks and needs to operate. 

• The business  must accept that it needs a significant shift in processes and systems and also mindset. 

A platform as a business model is focused on creating means of connection between its users. It may be described as a digitally enabled place. In our case, it will be a closed and secure place because it will hold exclusively sensitive/privileged data.

Design Requirements

• Easy connectivity  - for clients and users/super-users

• Clients must find it easy to use so that it removes any objections to adoption.

• The design must leverage the best of what exists, but only if that can be integrated in a way that achieves usability requirements.

• Enable teams to take overcome their fear of complexity.

• Create a more democratic way to allow different levels of expertise to be readily available and exploitable.

• Create an immersive and compelling way to surface great knowledge, articles and information sources.

• Be able to land complex and intellectual/academic theories in meaningful ways. 

• Allow easy access to the data, the insights, the non-negotiable principles or objectives of the business, the standards.

• Make it simple to give the heads up on gaps, implications, implications, decision criteria, imperatives and options.

• Create a place where it’s natural to see and make connections and draw important conclusions.

• Show the decision making process history (crumb-trail). This is a powerful record that gives everyone the evidence of how conclusions and decisions were reached.

• Provide a means of ‘educating’ and coaching teams in strategy making. That means explaining in sensitive ways what will often be a new and different world of work and fresh context for many. (Online support and real-world access to key themes - critical thinking, systems thinking, practical learning without all the language)

• Give the teams realtime support and enable them to gain ownership in a sympathetic, impartial but objective way. 

• Recognise that people have a day job. This system has to be relevant to them in the way they work. This needs to understand their own way of working, adapt and appreciate different levels of appetite and capability.

• The Platform must be based on a modular design so that features and functionality can be expanded over time

Backdrops - The Stories:

So, these three images above will have a short shelf life as we discuss the images themselves and the data/information requirement around them.

Backdrops - The Stories:

These backdrops will probably/likely be produced in a variety of applications.

• As large prints that will be freestanding in workshops

• As talking pieces to provoke and stimulate conversation.

• Ahead of workshops, they may well also have been used to manage expectations or force discussion.

• They will almost certainly be highly valuable In blogs and articles once we start marketing our new approach/portfolio of products.

Our Aim - to create a visual that whilst immediately symbolically representative can be ‘pulled back’ on to reveal more scenery. The reason for this is that there will be more or less content (data, information, labelling) depending on each use.

There will inevitably be semantic differences between us when seeing words like these and what we are visually representing - so we will just need to cycle our thinking between us a bit until we get to a rich visual that doesn’t alienate or confuse our audiences.

Our hope is that the one vignette can appeal to every market and every industry and perhaps by using different views we all don’t get bored with the same image. And of course, the labelling and text overlays will hopefully keep them fresh for longer.

There are five and I’ve begun to define them from my own perspective below. We can always argue and add and I’m sure there will be much more refinement possible. Hopefully, this gives you the gist and evokes some mental imagery - we are all audiences and these are very high-level rich pictures.

Consumerism

Consumerism is an interesting word. It's synonymous with retail but it impacts everything and every industry sector in some way. It’s been taken by society, business and politicians to be something either to defend or to be cautious of.


Everyone is a consumer. We all consume. The degree we are cajoled (into it) or delighted to be part of it is in itself a complex set of dynamics. Consumerism has also come to define an unhealthy addiction to (need to) own more stuff - in a time of abundance and that has obvious pitfalls and traps.

More centrally though the idea is that all societies are built on trade. All businesses need to be aware of their customers and many of them rely on consumerism of some sort.

This dynamic ensures that communities survive. The ‘profit’ within that trade has led to more civilised and meaningful societies. Without consumerism, we would not have the befit of the products and services that fulfil the needs of modern society. Consumerism is all around us.

Consumerism has come to mean the science associated with how to buy and sell and create attraction and then some sense of loyalty or addiction to certain brands. And for brands, this is a wholesale/widescale and very generic reference to everything that can be bought or sold.

Technologies

Technologies are many and varied. Most peoples perception of the word refers to our handheld mobiles and our computers that live on our desktops and in our homes. But in reality, technologies are all around us from biotechnology to agricultural technology to space technology to automotive technology and so on.

Virtually everything (and everybody) is being disrupted and transformed at this time. Scientists and engineers developing these technologies are doing so to automate improve make progress and reduce the manual nature of many tasks that have historically been done by human beings.

Technology in itself is not that interesting to the vast majority of people. This is not true in business where it is a massive cost. Business is therefore wary of investment in such a time of dramatic change. However, this is now the situation as normal. The rate of change and the ability of technology to disrupt everything is now a constant.

In the majority of our assignments, the technology backdrops will represent a powerful tidal wave of almost uncontrollable power crashing through every industry and every business on earth. It will be those who can embrace and leverage technologies, in general, he will survive.

Work

We’ll work. If everybody has a trade or a job or a role to fulfil. We all know about work. Businesses are under significant pressure to improve the capability of the people at a time when they are also considering how to automate large parts of their business in the name of effectiveness and efficiency.

We do not have a crystal ball that it is highly likely that large numbers of people will need to quickly learn new skills as technology enables them to be freer to do higher-value work that the machines simply cannot do at least for the foreseeable future.

The ability of the workforce to influence how fast or how slow an organisation can transform (and take advantage of the new world) is significant.

Work isn’t always rewarding for everybody and these paradigms are significant as leadership teams consider how to educate migrate and replace skills in order to stay competitive and be relevant in the future.
SLIDING SCALE.jpg

Society

Society is very local. Societies are very different and complex wherever you are in the world. They are made up of everything. Business politics cultures religions heritage education Systems laws and 1000 other things.

We have come to think of society has a tangible thing but it is really the sum of myriad systems and a merry and dynamics.

Society is not a thing it is a collection of subtle nuances of and historical perceptions and perspectives of individuals who are more or less enfranchised by each system. This causes many tensions and many great opportunities and countless cycles and pendulum swings that make the society what it is.

Fundamentally society is built on trade politics, media, history and the wishes and appreciations of the individuals that inhabit it. Societies are heavily impacted by neighbouring societies and global trends. In the current world. Society either bends or reacts to the threats and challenges of which there are many.

Surrounding it all are the global threats and opportunities that society has and human beings seemingly impossible challenge of becoming a collective force to combat the sometimes sinister/self-serving threats and abuse of the few in power against the interests of the many.
SLIDING SCALE.jpg

Marketplace

In many ways, the marketplace is where everything comes together. It is the one vignette where it would be possible to see the effects of a thriving or otherwise society, the impacts of a marauding technology or two, the work being done by the citizens and workers of the many businesses and The trade that is going on between everybody and every entity to release the currencies that enable the human beings to operate and survive.

Unsurprisingly given the phenomena of the digital marketplace is now not only a physical concept but also a digital and virtual reality. This has given rise to countless examples of major disruption to traditional. Amazon eBay Airbnb Uber and many more purely digital businesses have been able to make global multi-billion dollar businesses that have affectively replaced our high streets.

The Marketplace is a vital concept for humans.

The Power Of Deduction

In a strategic context, deduction is both a major element and a critical capability. In the future it will be exponentially more important. With luck, and as discussed elsewhere, we hope that the new tools available alongside will help as the amount of information also increases.

By having more information we can deduce better decisions. By making better decisions we reduce risk significantly.

The Strategic Toolkit has deduction at its core. Every aspect of the approach and the rigorous correlation of perspectives with certain indications is designed to improve deduction.

The Science of Tests

We scan and/or examine an organisation through three different perspectives. This way we can start to determine any unintended or overlooked gaps. These are common in every organisation and can be the difference between success and failure.

The tests explore what we claim to believe versus how we really show up.

Perspective 1: Meaning.

What do things like Prepared, Purposeful and Responsible actually mean to the Organisation? We are establishing the baseline for any given organisation. This assumes that these 3 ‘states’ are what everything else is seeking to achieve.

Our assessment tests how close an organisation is to achieving them. We might argue that the sum of the three equals ‘Sustainability’ by our definition.

Perspective 2: Identity.

What makes us as an Organisation? What drives us, shapes the way we structure ourselves and our resources, and establishes the norms that shape our culture? Where will we most bow down to pressure? What is most likely to attract our attention and how disciplined are we? In this test we are examining the DNA of the Organisation.

Here we look for the contradictions with what is said in Perspective 1.

Perspective 3. Action.

How do we put our thoughts, beliefs and ambitions into action? When the rubber hits the road how do we show up and what gets taken seriously. How good are we at sticking to our plans and practising what we preach? Do we invest in the right things and how insightful are our decisions and opinions? In these tests we are interested in deeds rather than definitions and personalities.

This is where we can show how well aligned an organisation really is

Spotting the Signs

At perspective 1 we are really focused on definition - the organisations definition of the 3 states of sustainability. We want to see what those terms mean to them and to compare that with our point of view.

From this we can either:

1. Feed that back via a public scan with some observations based on the businesses definitions and where we see ‘red flags’

2. Use this as a basis for discussion in client engagements to reach a set of definitions that feel right to the client and don’t break any key principles for us. We know there will be differing levels of ‘maturity’.

We are not diving deep into the organisation at this stage. The intention is to establish a benchmark.

Below perspective 1 everything that we scan or examine is done through (up to) 14 lenses which give us the forensics for that organisation. These are what we refer to as the Indicators of the current status for each perspective and the tests we run for them. So - for example - to understand the Organisations DNA at a more granular level we would unpack each of the 3 dimensions by Indicator.

When we get to perspective 3 we are interested in the way they work across the spectrum - from strategy to execution - so we also examine against 10 core business areas that every organisation would recognise as making up their world

Because this is a deep dive into the organisation we break this examination down into 6 tests that represent a closed loop and where each test has a significant interdependency on the others.

The scans series

Leaders Self Assessment.

Gathering Perspectives - Understanding Mindsets

This is an invitation for leaders to reflect on the things that we will be challenging them about.

It focuses on their perspective of where they are against these things. Based on their answers we can provide a brief (automated) assessment of what this suggests and what we'd expect to see when we work with them.

The first one would happen early on in an assignment. It would be ahead of us doing the direct work with them - so that we don't influence them.

We could get leaders to retake this at different points in a program to see if their assessment of themselves was changing. Naturally it would be good to find out just what is changing that. We know that once we start facilitating discussions they will start to look at things differently.

The model for this one will be to ask them to rate themselves against the different questions that we ask. We will use Options in this way so no change to the structure.

North Star Navigation

Shaping The Business Rationale

It’s critical to build the strategic intention. These are the foundations for everything else.

It creates the reference and sets the bar in terms of ambition and awareness. We already gather anything we can to understand current thinking. This information is sourced in a number of ways. Giving the client specific topic and questions is very effective. We will explore existing material too.

This data gathering exercise enables free text input.

Insights Maturity Assessment

This is a specific test of how informed and aware the client is of the state of the Organisation.

This test can be aimed at any level of the organization. It will not produce an automated report, nor any grading or scoring. It will help us to level set just how aware they are. We will add observations to the online capture and as others this is not a one-off scan. We will typically follow up online submissions with specific questions to test what we’ve learned. This is what truly enables an objective assessment.

Business Landscape Assessment

Landscape Shaping. Testing Against A Benchmark

This scan is a sense check on the overall ‘health’ of the organisation and its systems and its ability to adapt and evolve. We would want to provide a relatively comprehensive output and use that to help us shape a programme to address the main areas that showed up as vulnerable. The assessment would be repeated at key milestones to test for progress.

This one is better done at middle management (in the case of hierarchical organisations) and below - where people really experience the day to day operations. To some degree we will be balancing this against the leaders perspectives to spot contradictions etc.

We need to gather some baseline information for the landscape that is simply to map the business - this is not information that will go through an assessment, it’s just the content that populates the landscape for that org.

This is something that requires co-creating so the output (the landscape) should be treated as a tool that the team take on and maintain.

This is probably where we tweak existing Equaitor questions and section off the ones that fit this assessment.It’s worth exploring for the output whether we could introduce the visual ideas for the business landscape image

Spotting the Clues

These four, when combined, give us a profile that should hold quite a few clues for any engagement and follow up - leading to focused deep dives where necessary and identification of the need to pivot.

If this all passes the next level of development then later we can explore whether we can introduce any smart automation to get us to some clues quickly. As a minimum our different tags (indicators, focus areas, perspective etc) will help as we filter and scan the data.