A Strategy Process with More Rigor and Less Ego

Over the past few weeks, I’ve written about the benefits of a simple strategy, simple communication about that strategy, and centering the strategy in organizational routines.  The subtext of all those posts was a consistent theme in the strategy literature: the extent to which people understand and believe in a strategy is often the difference between success and failure of implementation. 

And this alignment often starts with the planning process itself. 

The book that was influential on this for me was Making Great Strategy by Stanford professors Jesper Sorensen and Glenn Carroll. Their core argument is that organizations should be more rigorous about strategy by explicitly stating the key assumptions, and the logical relationships between them and the desired outcome. 

However, the key to that rigor is a robust debate that both pushes the thinking and helps people get on the same page. They write: “Without constructive arguments among multiple stakeholders, strategy runs the risk of being disconnected from key parts of the organization and of being misunderstood. Strategy developed without the involvement and consultation of many parties can easily miss the mark and will prove difficult to execute.”

For me, the key insight was that by making the arguments explicit, it changes the dynamic from “Joe’s idea versus Jane’s idea” to “Joe’s logic versus Jane’s logic.” The former is a debate filled with ego where there’s a competition with a winner and a loser—and surely, the loser is less enthused to implement the resulting plan. 

In contrast, a “logic versus logic” dynamic creates the basis for a test or analysis to determine which is most reasonable. That enables Joe and Jane to sit on the same side of the table, see where both were at least somewhat right, and work jointly toward a solution, rather than work in opposition or trying to create a messy compromise just to avoid conflict. 

In Playing to Win, A.G. Lafley and Roger Martin changed the strategy conversations at P&G to contain more “assertive inquiry” for the same reason. They write: 

“Asking a single question can change everything: what would have to be true? This question helpfully focuses the analysis on the things that matter. It creates room for inquiry into ideas, rather than advocacy of positions. It encourages a broader consideration of more options, particularly unpredictable ones. It provides room to explore ideas before the team settles on a final answer. It dramatically reduces intrateam tension and conflict, during decision making and afterward. It turns unproductive conflict into healthy tension focused on finding the best strategic approach. And it leads to clear strategic choices at the end.”

Tool: Visualizing the Strategy

Sorensen and Carroll recommend creating a visual map as the start of strategic analysis. They write: “A strategy map shows the arrangement of strategic concepts and resources relative to one another; it also shows the direction in which cause-like forces proceed to generate organizational outcomes.”

And the map is helpful because it enables people to see the strategy more clearly than they would just through conversation. In this way, it helps the team achieve greater alignment. The authors write:  

“Without a strategy map, people will often think differently about the connections between specific actions and outcomes. They may not agree that actions are related to one another, or they may conceive of the nature of the connections differently—and they may not even realize that they hold such different views!” 

In fact, many other experts cite the benefits of visualization as the basis of creating alignment. 

For example, in Business Model Generation, Alexander Osterwalder and Yves Pigneur recommend that teams create a “business model canvas” as the output of their strategic thinking. They argue that the shared language that comes from the canvas creates better subsequent conversations. “Without such a shared language it is difficult to systematically challenge assumptions about one's business model and innovate successfully.” 

And in Blue Ocean Strategy, W. Chan Kim and Renée Mauborgne write: “Visualizing strategy can also greatly inform the dialogue among individual business units and the corporate center in transforming a company’s business portfolio from red to blue. When business units present their strategy canvases to one another, they deepen their understanding of the other businesses in the corporate portfolio. Moreover, the process also fosters the transfer of strategic best practices across units.”

Beyond the benefits of visualization in the strategy development process, it can also help with communication of the strategy to everyone else. Of course, to be effective, the “for communication” graphic will never be as complex as the “for analysis” version. Because of that, there’s a risk of dumbing it down to the point of being ineffective. 

Sorenson and Carroll provide this warning: “In the most egregious cases [the communication strategy maps] fail to capture the fundamental trade-offs and choices inherent in a great strategy. They show everything as connected to everything, or imply that everything comes together seamlessly through the magic of nested circles and recursive loops.”

Instead, they recommend (a) testing the strategic map with someone “who does not know much about the company” to see whether it communicates the core logic clearly, and (b) accompanying the simple graphics with “a clear, written explanation” to avoid misunderstanding.