Once upon a time I was a member of (what I'll call) a commercialised start-up. We had spun out of a university faculty research project, & did an amazing job. We listed, stormed the market, made the most of our luck, & had great success. In retrospect we did well because we were intertwined with our customer base, sure, but also because our customers (& therefore the market) gave us a tremendous needle in our strategic direction. We were each close to the information we needed, & empowered to act on it.
Now I work at a small business unit of a big company. Our corporate colleagues believe they're close to customers, but I think they'd agree it's also challenging at times to be nimble & react to changing needs. I see elements of Hamel's 'make direction setting bottom-up and outside-in' & 'create a democracy of information', but honestly... how can a large company execute this & truly make it effective? How can they act like we did, with hopefully the same level of success?
My thought is this - many large companies, like our corporate team, have a central Corporate Strategy & Business Development team... so why not decentralised it? Why not have a CSBD individual on every team, no matter how small? Why not task them with 'embedding' themselves on these teams & helping their team act on information, bubble up information as necessary, &/or define & refine the their own local strategy as the need be? Why not use such a structure in a big company to facilitate quicker action, reaction, &, hopefully, more proactive action?
If each CSBD member then came back to a central conversation with their colleagues & leaders each week, wouldn't information not only stay with those empowered to act on it, but disseminate laterally as well as vertically? Wouldn't this tri-directional distribution of information drive superior alignment of individual & team efforts with the overall strategies, goals & objectives of the organisation? Couldn't it also promote & foster independent thinking & superior of ground roots projects within those individual teams' strategies, goals & objectives?
Why couldn't people overcome structure & help a big company become as nimble as a small business?
Great opportunity here Jonty, have you considered creating a proposal to leaders at your current business, to respond to these well stated questions: " Why not have a CSBD individual on every team, no matter how small? Why not task them with 'embedding' themselves on these teams & helping their team act on information, bubble up information as necessary, &/or define & refine the their own local strategy as the need be? Why not use such a structure in a big company to facilitate quicker action, reaction, &, hopefully, more proactive action?"
I suspect a brief proposal as you outlined here – and sent for consideration, (with benefits of profitability included) might be the spark that lights a new fire in your current setting. What an innovation opportunity I see in your sketch here. Have you considered proposing it formally from your department?
Good luck using the changes you suggest as a springboard into a model that is custom designed for your new business.
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Developing strategy and executing them are entirely two different things and most of the time execution could be entirely different from the stratgey developed in the first place. This disconnect is mostly seen in companies where strict protocols exist and top management does not MIX (engage) with the executing team. In such organizations the key objective for giving intructions/plans is mainly to demonstrate power and authority. "Decentralizing" as mentioned can help provided the roles and responsibilities are defined and understood as this could mean a big change in the way of doing things and allocating resources. Morevover, this could have a huge impact on earnings for certain companies whose functioning depends purely on human capital instead of machines/computers.
One key point to understand is that strategy could change as we move on executing the task or projects. Current business is deluged with huge amount of information, market fluctuation and this creates huge number of variables which could lead to a change in strategy. This change in strategy needs to be quickly analyzed, understood and then implemented. Normaly, we fail to do this and instead try to stick to the original strategy which eventualy leads to disaster.
-------ARVIND MOHAN
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Re your hack “Why does Strategy Start at the Top?
Re your hack “Why does Strategy Start at the Top?
Sometimes, the answer to simple questions is not that simple. Maybe we should differentiate between the business-policy or strategy-fundamentals and the strategies.
The strategy-fundamentals are set by the CEO and his/her senior management because this is where long-view and long term vision is formed and the appropriate corporate culture is nursed. But, the strategies should be articulated and implemented at different levels and functions. In larger organizations, I advocate the implementation of a process of strategic and organizational deployment. In a nutshell it goes as follows.
The boss (N) picks strategic objectives and delegates them to the next level (N-1), who with his/her team has to work out the strategies to achieve those strategic objectives. In some cases, (N-1) needs to get the next level involved. So (N-1) sets objectives to (N-2) who will work out the appropriate strategies. Eventually, the whole strategic and organizational deployment reverses direction and moves up the ladder for approvals and resource allocations.
I have just described – albeit very succinctly – the policy deployment process developed by the Japanese in the 60s. Based on that, I have developed “The Model of the Two Rings” and a number of mind-maps that integrate my Platform of Management-Innovation. You will find it in “Innovate out of Crisis - Second (and revised ) Edition”, which I published in 04/2010. It connects the planners to the doers.
Someone said “strategy is too important to leave it to the generals”. That, to my mind, certainly applies to the business-strategies, but not to the strategy-fundamentals, which set a basis for the business-strategies.
Kind regards, Willy A. Sussland, Ph.D.
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Dear Jonty,
You have identified the problem precisely: the flow of information leading to actionable Knowledge.
However, I have questions on the way you have solved it:
- In this age of technology must we depend upon people for opening communication lines?
- having one representative, and that too a foreigner, carry back information for evaluation is dangerous. Unjust biases may deprive the company of opportunities.
You may like to have a look in on the hacks of Bill Nobles and Raj Kumar. They have addressed the problem of energy for decision making and handling interactions for superior collective thinking. However, their approaches are entirely different.
Regards,
Dhiraj
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