You know how every blog post and article about digitalization starts by explaining how the world is changing and the competitive landscape is evolving faster than ever before? Well there is a reason for that. Digitalization not only changes the Customer Experience and enables new business and earning models, it also changes the way businesses plan and implement their strategy. Or at least it should.
Jack Welch once said “If the rate of change outside your organization exceeds the rate of change inside, the end is near”. Well if the world is changing in a more rapid pace than before, why do we hang on to the current way of making up business strategy: In a small group every 3-5 years in a grand whirlwind of workshops and post-its with one of the most important outcomes being the strategy roadmap. In fact between 98 and 08 the use of the term roadmap more than tripled. If you don’t believe me, just Google it.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m all for a strategic roadmap, but drawing them as often as actual maps also entails we assume the landscape stays the same for that period of time.
One of my customers told me the other day that he doesn’t want to have a larger than life strategy or focus on a five year plan for how to get his business there while the world around races on (in that faster than ever before pace) . So I propose three things to keep in mind the next time strategy comes knocking on your door, asking to be updated – and something tells me this will be around 2020 for the most of you:
1. Collaborate and enable collective learning
Culture eats Strategy for breakfast is a phrase many organizational leaders are familiar with. And the saying does holds some truth to it. Telling your organization what you want them to achieve during the upcoming years has never been that efficient, so why not incorporate the whole organization in both designing and turning strategy into action. Studies show that most organizations put most effort on informing their employees about their strategy through various material, strategy videos and internal roadshows only after the it has been designed and polished. However, the impact of this kind of engagement is low and learning is as low as 15 and 20%
On the other hand, when employees have a chance to interpret the organizations strategy into concrete actions and both teach and learn from each other, learning goes up to a whooping 75 to 90%. By involving your employees, you are not only using the massive knowledge within your company, you are also helping them in their collective learning and in gaining a sense of ownership for the strategy you are designing. This requires an organization-wide dialogue where employees can openly discuss, share their experiences and interpret what the strategy means for them in their everyday work.
2. Create a Minimum Viable Strategy and iterate based on response
If you think back five years, things looked quite different than they do now. Facebook had not yet gone public, we were all sporting the newest of the new – the iPhone 5, and Marissa Mayer had just become the first pregnant Fortune 500 CEO. What did your organizations strategy look like back then and has it been attained? Instead of trying to foresee what your business environment will look like and creating a plan for the upcoming five years, we could create strategy in shorter time spans, iterating as we go along.
Think of it as Minimum Viable Strategy. The faster an organization puts a strategy out for the organization to react to, the faster it will receive feedback. A sort of crowd sourcing if you will, for ideas and best practices from employees with different roles and responsibilities who all see the strategy from different perspectives.
This way organizations can make small changes in their course based on the response and learning of each iteration round, their strategy remains relevant, and employees become a part of the strategy design process, not just the first step to implementation.
3. Give your strategy a modern UI and collect vital data
The way people communicate, connect, and learn is changing and there is no reason why strategy shouldn’t adapt similar technologies and methods that enable these changes in other contexts. Giving your organization a virtual environment and facilitated process supports the previous two points and enables organizations to collect data on the strategic discussions that are being held within the organization and exposes the beliefs and views behind the decisions being made on various levels within the company.
Collecting data is only the first step. Based on the data gathered, top management can identify the gap between desired outcome and current behavior and quickly identify global best practices. Supervisors gain knowledge of current challenges and can optimize the allocation of development resources. Individual employees and teams can keep track of the actions they have set to support the strategy and see what others have set.
A virtual interface and gathering data not only accelerates strategy iteration and implementation cost-efficiently but also supports global collaboration and a sense of community.
To summarize: Collaborate and enable collective learning, Create a Minimum Viable Strategy and iterate based on response, Give your strategy a modern UI and collect vital data.
*This past year I have had the honor and pleasure of working on a platform that enables and supports all three of these points. You can read more about the platform here.
helena mustelin 