Tag Archives: management
Innovation posts of the week: How Reframers unleash innovation in their companies
- 7 Non-traditional Barriers to Innovation via @ralph_ohr
- Fail More, Win More | Fast Company
- How Reframers Unleash Innovation in Their Companies (And Beyond) – (HBR)
- People are our competitive advantage – Ann Holman by @annholman
- Managing for innovation by @ovoinnovation
- Forget Brainstorming – Newsweek
- Secret to Successful New Product Innovation | Nielsen via @bhc3
- The Creativity Crisis – Newsweek
- The art of Design/Creative thinking, ways to foster Innovation by @Richbugger
- Why beliefs are not good to creativity? by @jabaldaia
An analogy for using the Blue Ocean Strategy framework
If you’re a strategy guy I’m sure you’re familiar with the Blue Ocean approach to strategy where you set out to create new value by not competing but rather creating and capturing new demand (new market) where you’re the only guy holding the flag.
In a nutshell here’s what Blue Ocean Strategy proposes:
Sounds pretty damn good but the problem is it’s difficult to imagine and do, worse yet is it’s difficult to understand if you’re someone who’s not a CEO, strategist, consultant or marketer. To tackle this problem I thought I’d uncover the hidden truth behind some of the key ideas of the approach. (more…)
Innovation posts of the week: Management innovation at W.L. Gore
Lessons from a Middle-Aged Revolutionary at W.L. Gore part1 & part 2
The Collapse of Complex Business Models « Clay Shirky
Innovation: defining, doing, measuring – PARC blog
The Secret Reason Your Employees Won’t Innovate – Harvard Business Review
The Failure of Failure – Harvard Business Review
Experiments – the Key to Innovation – Innovation Leadership Network
IDEO’s Tim Brown on Using Design to Change Behavior – Harvard Business Review
See Things as They Are—Then Change Them – Harvard Business Review
What is strategy? Part deux
“Anyone can plan a campaign, but few are capable of waging war, because only a true military genius can handle the developments and circumstances.” – Napoleon Bonaparte
There’s was a great discussion going on the topic of strategy last week and I thought I put some more thought into it and clarify my point of view that strategy does require planning, but only to prepare your mind.
What is strategy? I’ve talked about this before and defined strategy as:
The essence of strategy is not to carry out a brilliant plan that proceeds in steps; it is to put yourself in situations where you have more options than everyone else. Instead of going for A as the single right answer, true strategy is positioning yourself to be able to do A, B or C depending on the situation.
Planning prepares your mind for what might happen
The problem with this statement is it doesn’t mention that there is some planning beforehand, the assumption people are making is that you’re just going with the flow without knowing what you might run into. My argument is not that there shouldn’t be any planning but that you plan thinking in all sorts of different scenarios and then choosing the option that gives you the most advantage at that point.
All great strategists including, the greatest of them all, Napoleon knew their environment from the inside out and this gave them the ability to formulate strategies that always gave them the advantage no matter the situation.
They would craft plans with branches that when executed presented their opponents with difficult decisions to make since they never knew what they might do next.
Strategy has to be your own formula
Business school literature has made strategy to be very mechanical in thinking, a formula to follow. It’s understandable but what they failed to tell you is that strategy was born in war where unpredictability and chaos reigned and no single plan was executed as it was planned. The more clever strategist such as Napoleon used fluid strategies to disrupt his opponents, he was always thinking several steps ahead and never did what his opponent expected him to do.
He kept them on their heels by formulating strategies they never would imagine because they were playing by his rules.
To be strategic is to be unconventional
What separates the Napoleon’s from the others is they don’t follow set patterns, they work outside their opponents experience and maneuver them to situations where they are weak. A true strategist is fluid and adaptable, he changes with the environment as if he already knows what’s going to happen next.
The more mechanical your opponent is in thinking, the more predictable he is.
Hit him with the unexpected, take him out of his domain and see him run like a chicken without a head.
Key takeaway: Do as Napoleon, instead of following ’best practices’ differentiate yourself by creating your own set of rules. Set the pace and force your competitors to dance to your tunes. And if they don’t like it, that’s great because you’ll have the whole dance floor to yourself.
UPDATE: Ralf Beuker added his thoughts through Twitter and would extend the formula to:
Strategy = f (People + Objectives + Inside-out + Outside-in + Means)
Always mind your surroundings. Thanks Ralf!
Why do you think most organizations and people think of strategy as a step by step action plan when it’s really a state of mind?
What is strategy?
What’s wrong with strategy? So many definitions, so much complexity. Nobody really knows what strategy really is.
So, what is strategy?
To me strategy is not pursuing a detailed plan step by step, it is finding or creating options that give me an advantage at any moment.
Let me explain why:
The world is full of people looking for a secret formula to success and power. They don’t want to think on their own; they just want the recipe to follow. For this very reason they are attracted to the idea of strategy.
In their minds strategy is a series of steps to be followed toward a goal. They want these steps spelled out for them by some expert or guru. Believing in the power of imitation, they want to know what others have done before. Their maneuvers in life are as mechanical as their thinking. They are predictable.
The essence of strategy is not to carry out a brilliant plan that proceeds in steps; it is to put yourself in situations where you have more options than everyone else. Instead of going for A as the single right answer, true strategy is positioning yourself to be able to do A, B or C depending on the situation.
Our society values people who have the right answer but in reality there is no single right answer, there are many. At any moment one approach can be better than the other, being aware of this is what separates true strategists from the one’s following a game plan.
Do you agree? What’s your definition of strategy? This is an important topic, let’s get a discussion going!
Presentation: How Netflix fosters a culture of success
Culture Mou gaan dou III: Jung gik mou gaan ipod
View more presentations
from reed2001.
What makes your company unique? it’s not the slogan and name on your logo.
It’s the values and principles which drive your people’s behavior every single day that deliver the results. I really like when companies release details of how their culture works, it shows they are proud and confident in their people.
Some interesting points from Netflix is they value efficiency over hard work, they hire only superstars which they say helps the company focus on high performance.
They clearly know in what business they’re in.
It’s worth a look!
