1. Navigate the FutureTM
“Blind Spots, Bias & Bravado – A Toxic Combination”
Issue 3 - Volume 3
Fall 2011
Executive Report on Leadership & Business Strategy
2. As we watch organizations attempt to understand and cope with the demands
of a rapidly changing environment, we are struck by how often senior leaders are
frustrated by the inadequacy of their current strategy. They express a queasy feeling
their strategy somehow seems to fall short of what is necessary to actually meet the
challenges of the moment.
In short, we see a lot of bad strategy. We agree with Dr. Richard P. Rumelt of The
Anderson School of Management at UCLA. Many organizations operate with a
primitive understanding of what strategy really is, what it means and what it can
achieve. As he suggests, there are too many organizations confusing bold ambition
with good strategy. They make great pronouncements to the market, their customers
and their employees about how they will be the biggest “this” or the greatest “that”,
but those pronouncements are not strategy.
We believe it’s time to make different choices. We see the demise of charisma and
bravado as the fuel for energizing strategy. In its place, we see the rise of candour,
coherence and courage, combined with a conviction to overcome blind spots, eliminate
biases and get to the truth.
In our view, it begins with identifying some hallmarks of bad strategy.
• An abundance of fluff, exaggeration and hyperbole
• Failure to address the core challenges or wicked problems
• Mistaking cascading goals and detailed objectives for strategy
• Setting weak objectives that do not change the fundamental condition
Yours truly,
R. Douglas Williamson
President & C.E.O.
In Our View ...
3. Developing coherent, game changing strategic plans, and setting a clear, bold,
long-term direction, have long been considered the highest priority and responsibility
of senior executives. Unfortunately, two questions come to mind in the midst of the
current economic conundrum.
First - How effective is the strategic planning process?
Second - What gets in the way of improving both the process and the outcome?
We don’t believe most organizations would, objectively, receive Top Grade for their
strategy. There are very few Apples or IKEAs, but is there really a good reason why
the rest of us cannot achieve that same dominating level of credibility? The answer
is that most strategies may be good enough to get by, but they are not good enough
to differentiate, to set the pace and to dominate the space. In other words, they are
not strategies at all, rather a collection of tactical goals and objectives, conveniently
clustered together under a banner called a Strategy.
Strategy setting, when taken seriously, should be about the clear identification of
the “wicked problems” a company needs to address to gain a competitive advantage,
and then a declaration of intent to tackle them in a focused way. In other words, it
begins with the identification of a compelling, perhaps chronic problem or anomaly
that needs to be resolved – now!
By its very nature, a strategy setting discussion is an argument, a point of view. It
should, in fact, attract criticism and maybe even ridicule. It should destroy old ideas,
paradigms and beliefs. In order to build a great strategy, there has to be vibrant
debate. If the objective is to craft superior strategy, then there is a desperate need
for greater honesty in the discussions surrounding it.
Encouraging Strategic Honesty ...
4. Whether you love him or hate him, there is little doubt Jack Welch was a great success
as the C.E.O. of General Electric. He is even better known today for his views, opinions
and pronouncements on leadership. One of the most compelling statements he has
ever made is on the lack of candour in organizations or what he calls “superficial
congeniality”. In his books and speeches on this subject, he talks about the harm done
when organizations fail to be brutally honest with themselves.
Strategy is serious business. It deserves total candour. Candour must be encouraged,
developed, modelled, supported and rewarded. Unfortunately, we don’t know of
too many cultures where that really is the case and it may be fewer today than
two years ago.
We think inferior or bad strategy generally has something to do with a lack of
willingness to be honest about the fundamental strategic challenges. It is a conflict
avoidance tendency. A belief in pumping up assets and good news, rather than
admitting liabilities and sharing the bad news. This deficit in thinking and behaviour
reveals itself as a failure to state the worst fears or admit the underlying challenge. It
is the inability to call out the primary challenge and ask people to rally around solving
it. All too often, the tendency is to strive for a beautifully concocted, vanilla coated
form of consensus that may feel good, but which generally does not produce superior
results or competitive advantage.
In our view, no matter how painful the worst truth is, it is still better than the best lie.
Building a Culture of Candour ...
5. Identifying the Pivot Points ...
Military and political history are full of examples in which a leader (often against all
odds) has used a set of bold strategies to out manoeuvre the opposition. In almost all of
these cases, victory came because there was a particular moment at which the leader
made a critical decision that, in retrospect, became the evident and eventual pivot
point. A deciding action that shifted the momentum and placed the organization on a
course for victory.
So it is with business strategy.
These pivot points are not accidental or random decisions. They are deliberate, defining
moments of unique and disproportionate advantage. They arise because there was a
decision made to focus the effort of the organization in an extraordinary manner on
a single outcome or “bet”. This focus is what provides the necessary leverage to tip the
scales. In business, we are not particularly good at the kind of singular focus needed
to take advantage of these pivot points. It seems we have a need to mitigate all of the
risks associated with the big decision. As a result, we never quite make the commitment
necessary to take full advantage. In other words, we hedge our “bets”, rather than
aggressively exploiting opportunity.
One of the reasons we do is this is because we are constantly searching for a full
understanding and perfect balancing of all the variables, before we act. While this might
be an appropriate course if we want mediocrity - it is not the way in which organizations
come to dominate their space or change the course of history.
The point here is that strategy should be a choice – a clear, crisp deliberate choice – and,
as such, should receive a disproportionate amount of our attention, focus, effort and
resources. In order to be effective, the entire organization must have a laser beam focus
on a particular course of action, the foundation of which lies at the very farthest reaches
of our understanding.
6. There is a huge and important difference between strategy, in the way we are talking
about it here, and the goals, objectives and tactics we see in most Strategic Plans.
We believe this important difference is not well understood. As a result, we can find
ourselves being easily seduced into calling something a Strategy when it is not.
Put simply, strategy should be about problem solving. It should be about identifying
the most difficult, thorny, “wicked” problem and deciding to apply maximum attention
and effort to it. It requires the courage to acknowledge the problem in the first place,
to shine the bright light of attention on it and must be combined with the will to make
it the center of everything that is done.
First - it takes a proactive, candour-seeking leader to help the organization
take the first step of “admission” or acknowledgement. In many cases, this first
step never occurs, simply because the leaders and the organization are afraid
to work hard enough to dig out the weak points and put them on the table.
Second - it’s kind of like the old saying, “ignorance is bliss”. So many executive
teamsdonotseemwillingtohavethenecessary,sometimespainful,exploratory
discussions to find the deeply hidden “secret”. They hope by avoiding it, or
pretending it is not there, that maybe it will just go away.
Finally - there is the question of the ruthless, deliberate focus necessary to take
advantage of the pivot point, which is only an advantage if you find it in the
first place. When you do, you then have to be willing to devote everything you
have to resolving it quickly and boldly.
The best strategic discussions should be about how best to get “unstuck”.
Strategy as Problem Solving ...
7. There is a unique aroma that comes with the sensing of an opportunity. It is part
adrenaline, part fear and part excitement. It is the same emotional high that comes
with being close to inevitable victory in a sporting match. It is the point at which
everything slows down, your vision becomes crystal clear and the necessary effort
seems effortless, because you can taste victory.
In business, these moments are rare. They may be found, for example, in the thrill
of an acquisition, but seldom are they part of the organization’s DNA on a day-to-
day basis. The strategic challenge is to create these same “highs” by channelling
the organization’s adrenaline on a common cause that replicates the emotion
of anticipation. Because these unique opportunities lie at the very edge of our
understanding and tend to present themselves at inconvenient moments, it becomes
easy to “take a pass”. Good strategy never allows that to happen!
These are exactly the strategic inflection points that Andy Grove at Intel spoke about
years ago. They are the pivot points that create the disproportionate advantage that
allow an organization to dominate an opportunity and shape it in their own way, to
the distinct disadvantage of their competitors. This kind of strategic opportunism
is very seldom logical and there is usually no precedent. All of this is exactly what
makes it so important the opportunity be converted into a clear, focused strategy.
Opportunity sensing is about taking advantage of the anomalies. Opportunity
sensing is about staking a claim on an unknown piece of land. Opportunity sensing
is knowing, in your bones, that what you are about to do just feels right.
It is the organizations that can get comfortable with this line of thinking that will be
able to take advantage of the opportunities presented by the disequilibrium in which
we all find ourselves today.
Opportunity Sensing ...
8. Leading an organization is never easy, let alone in times of uncertainty. The only
way to help ease the pressure and the stress as you accelerate out of the corner,
is to ensure everything you do and say adds layers of coherence to an uncertain
situation. The very best leaders are able to connect the dots in such a way as to
enable others to see a more complete picture of the future and through that gain
confidence and commitment.
In order to provide coherence, the leader must dramatically and permanently turn
down the noise level in the organization, eliminate any unnecessary distractions and
banish the fear of uncertainty. This is best accomplished by reducing the wide scope
of attention and committing to a narrower, sharper set of strategic imperatives.
In other words, banishing all the extraneous activities in order to dedicate the
organization on a singular focus.
In order to get your organization properly coordinated in time and space, you
need to hone the focus such that no matter how far in the future you are looking,
the picture is still clear and not clouded by the frivolous or the unimportant. It is
amazing how often organizations allow themselves to become trapped by adding
unnecessary layers of complexity on top of far too many priorities mixed in with pet
projects and diversions. It’s a recipe for underachievement.
Focus is a choice. By definition, it means choosing one thing over another. The
problem is, this trade-off is often forgotten rather than being the “quid pro quo” for
making a strategic choice. As a result, the buried mole eventually raises its head and
the organization diminishes the benefits of relentless focus by continuing to allow
it to roam the halls.
Value of Coherence ...
9. Curious isn’t it – how so many tough minded executives still have trouble saying
“No”? This is especially perplexing since the ability to say “No” is among the most
important elements of good strategy and is essential to the ability to execute the
strategy. Strategy, by its very nature, is the imposition of rules to guide actions,
frame decisions and make choices.
Good strategy requires the ability to say “No” to those things that get in the way
of total focus.
The ability to say “No”, to call off wasteful energy draining initiatives, to abandon
those activities that are peripheral to the mission, is a critical discipline and a
key competency of the strategic leader. The fact is, any good strategy involves
trade-offs, choosing one course of action over another. It’s when we allow the lines
to blur or overlap that we get into trouble. We send mixed signals, we misallocate
resources and we add fuel to the silo mentality of turf protection.
Strategy is about magnifying the effort of the organization to pursue an ambitious
objective. In order to do so, we have to make the hard black and white decisions that
clear the path for total commitment. In too many organizations, there is a belief that
by somehow dividing or spreading our efforts, we are hedging our bets and reducing
risk. We would argue just the opposite. Allowing too many priorities to flourish,
allowing too many executives or departments to put their agenda first effectively
starves the most important things of oxygen. As a result, it actually increases the
risk of total failure or suboptimal performance because the full force and weight of
effort is not committed to what really matters.
Benefits of Saying “No” ...
10. Quite frankly, we are shocked by how often leaders feel the need to nail a fancy
slogan above their strategic plan. It is as though they believe it is necessary to wrap
the strategy in a few simplistic emotional words to galvanise the organization, to
help make it understood by the masses. Why not just make the strategy simple to
understand in the first place?
• Strategy is not a syrupy slogan.
• Strategy is a bold intention.
The quality of a strategy should not be judged by the complexity of the arguments or
the way in which they are beautifully packaged into dense PowerPoint presentations.
All too often, this is nothing more than a fancy masquerade - an attempt to
demonstrate a level of superior expertise and depth of analysis which, in its very
complexity, reveals its false promise. There is no place for fluff and illusion in a good
competitive strategy.
Leaders need to overcome the intellectual temptation to embroider the strategy.
Instead, they must reduce the levels of ambiguity and complexity by forcing the
organization to concentrate on the core and tune out any extraneous noise. There is
great beauty in simplicity. We would argue that simplicity adds coherence to the plan
and, as a result, allows greater flexibility in striving to reach the optimal outcome.
Leaders have to be fully alert and relentlessly attentive to the ill-considered
propositions that are put forward, usually based on the most flimsy of evidence
and elaborately concocted arguments. It is about focus, relentless focus. This can
only occur when the culture proves itself willing to eliminate light weight fluff
masquerading as important strategy.
Eliminating Fluff ...
11. Over the past several years, the swamp has drained and the hidden rocks should
now be visible. What better time to declare war on the things that don’t really
matter. Instead, we still find organizations hunkered down for survival, not rising
appropriately to the challenge at hand.
It is as though the greater the uncertainty and instability in the market, the less
willing leaders actually are to stare down the “devils” within their own organization.
The less willing they are to deal with the things holding them back and getting in
the way. The less candour they have to tackle the issues that make a real difference.
Strategy is ultimately about developing a radically new point of view. A new way of
looking at the world and defining success. Opportunity arises as these viewpoints
shift, affording you the opportunity to destabilize and disorient the competition.
Here is a list of pointers to help get you started.
Dig Deeper - Much Deeper
If your resolve is to get straight answers to the “wicked problems” hidden just
beneath the surface, the search will depend on how willing you are to do the
heavy lifting necessary to find them. Begin by making sure you have selected the
right people to help you think, probe and discover and provide them with the
necessary air cover they need and deserve
Ask Tougher Questions
Mining for the hidden issues, dilemmas and incongruities lurking in your
organization will require more penetrating questions than you have ever been
asked before. The questions need to be questions of exploration. Questions
focused on the unknown territories - and you have to be prepared to follow the
line of thought, no matter where it takes you.
Steps to Take :: Actions to Consider
12. Check the Numbers
In this new world of hypercompetition, you will need to change how you analyze
the conditions. This means examining the data you have in hand in new and more
interesting ways. Then, just to add another level of tension, you will need to seek
out new information from new places and in new combinations.
Call it Out
Organizations tend, over time, to take on the characteristics of their leader. If
there is a meaningful shift to be made in the way strategy is conceived, then the
leader will have to model new behaviours. This very likely means an overt, visible
commitment to calling out the superficial arguments that do not hold water and
putting an end to the timid, evasive responses to the tougher questions. Raise the
bar. Increase the standards. Demand better.
Ensure Ample Air Cover
It is a fact of human nature we can become easily distracted when we allow
our minds to wander. At the organizational level this is multiplied several times
and, very soon, we have a complex maze of conflicting, opinions, priorities and
messages. The trick is to eliminate the excuses people use to divert their energy
and attention. Sharpen up the messaging. Simplify the strategy.
Go Big or Go Home
Business is about balancing risk with market need and opportunity. As we have
been forced back onto our heels by recent economic events and circumstances,
many have tried to lessen the risk by reducing their field of vision. They have
justified a hunker down strategy by promoting it as the safest thing to do. Strategy
is an offensive weapon. Get out of the bunker and get back in the game.
13. We are a Canadian-based professional services firm supporting clients throughout North
America and around the world. We work with organizations in all sectors and industries in
the development of their business strategies and in helping them leverage their investment
in human capital.
Our goal is to support senior leadership teams in their efforts to:
Optimize - strategic positioning and market opportunities
Maximize - long-term organizational effectiveness
Develop - leadership competency and fitness
Create - superior levels of performance
Our practice is divided into four main areas of expertise:
Strategy | Culture | Talent | Leadership
When integrated, this broadly based expertise provides our clients with a comprehensive
Organizational Health and Business Performance System.
The Beacon Group is ...
TALENT
TALENT ASSESSMENT &
PERFORMANCE ENHANCEMENT
PERFORMANCE + POTENTIAL
MAXIMIZING ORGANIZATIONAL HEALTH
&
IMPROVING BUSINESS PERFORMANCE
ORGANIZATIONAL TRANSFORMATION
& EFFECTIVENESS
TALENT IDENTIFICATION
& DEVELOPMENT
LEADERSHIP
MANAGEMENT TRAINING &
LEADERSHIP DEVELOPMENT
DESIGN + DELIVERY
CULTURE
ORGANIZATIONAL &
CULTURAL ASSESSMENT
ENGAGEMENT + FITNESS
STRATEGY
STRATEGIC THINKING &
PLANNING
FACILIATION + DIALOGUE
14. We believe ... mindset, attitude, character and behaviour matter. It is vitally important
to be clear, consistent and authentic. This is especially true when serving as a “trusted
partner” to the organizations who work with us.
We commit ... in all aspects of our client relationships, to being:
Progressive - forward thinking, ambitious and pragmatically radical
Thought Leaders - innovative, audacious and imaginatively bold
Passionate - loving what we do and creating passion in others
Customer Driven – dedicated, involved and fully committed
Responsive - fast acting, intense and able to anticipate
Agile - enthusiastic, nimble, adaptive and courageous
Our Approach
We support ... progressive leaders and ambitious organizations in developing relevant
Business Performance and Human Capital strategies that have an immediate impact.
We partner ... with them to create and implement robust strategies, solid frameworks
and pragmatic solutions, allowing them to lead with confidence and deliver results.
We achieve ... this through a commitment to:
Providing - a comprehensive, integrated set of organizational effectiveness tools
Focusing - on building customized solutions to meet performance challenges
Supporting - mission-driven leaders with their transformational agendas
Appealing - to those with a pragmatic, no nonsense approach
Executing - our work with punch, panache and know-how
Delivering - results that make a difference
Our Core Values
