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WORST APPROACHES TO STRATEGY Consider this question: "Which are the WORST approaches to Strategy"? The ways of thinking about Strategy that can have bad or even disastrous future effects on our organization ... and why? 1. MVV-DRIVEN This approach has survived for decades. We define some Mission, Vision, Values that nobody can tell where did they come from (and why these instead of others) and, based on them, we imagine some Strategic Destination (or Strategic Intent) that prescribes a Strategy to be reached. Why is it Bad? Because the future that we cannot control (otherwise we would only do planning) will throw at us some Paramount Challenges that may have nothing to do with our fantasies about some intended MVV. 2. SWOT-DRIVEN This is also an oldies-but-goldies route to Strategy's failure. We perform the famous SWOT Analysis and, based on that insight, we design some new uses of our Strengths and ways to alleviate our Weaknesses, in order to harvest the anticipated Opportunities and defend against the future Threats. Why is it Bad? Because the solutions to surmount the Paramount Challenges related to the identified future Opportunities & Threats may have nothing or little to do with our current Strengths & Weaknesses that resulted from our past Strategy. Remember late Daniel Kahneman's "What brought you here won't get you there"! 3. ASPIRATIONS-DRIVEN The famous Roger M, ex-Dean/consultant, now retired to Florida, took possession of this approach with his Playing-to-Win cascade. It says that God has hopefully inserted into our brains some Winning Aspirations and, to reach them, we devise some Strategic Choices that best position us to do so. Why is it Bad? Because Strategy is not a game of wishes and desires. We might wish some imaginary aspirations for what we might think that "winning" is, but the future reality that we don't control will throw at us some Paramount Challenges that may have nothing to do with those aspirations. 4. STAKEHOLDERS-DRIVEN This is an emerging approach that arises from wearing strategic blinders. It says that we should look at what our main Stakeholders want from us and at what we want from them, then define a Strategy based on some Strategic Factors that should allow us to address each of those Stakeholder's needs. Why is it Bad? Because the future reality will throw at us some challenges that may be related to our main Stakeholders' needs ... or not. So, while we will be busy addressing those needs, the business environment's evolutions may hit us with some Paramount Challenges about which our Strategy is partially or completely oblivious. These are the worst, but not the only bad ones. For example, are you familiar with the "Fail Fast, Fail Often" or "Blitzscaling" strategies? Also read: CHALLENGE-BASED STRATEGY https://lnkd.in/dFNWcWtr WHY DO WE NEED A STRATEGY? (1) https://lnkd.in/dR_nMZtn WHY DO WE NEED A STRATEGY? (2) https://lnkd.in/dwnwbKsz THE HEADLESS CHICKEN STRATEGY https://lnkd.in/gDSndzDN
This is a very relevant question in today's business environment, @Mihai Ionescu! Many organizations fall into these traps. A truly agile and resilient strategy needs to be adaptable and less reliant on static, pre-determined notions. Thanks for highlighting these common pitfalls - helps to challenge conventional thinking! #strategy #businessagility
Interesting post. Save for SWOT (which is “bad” because it is routinely used as a safe exit point to strategy and is poorly understood and wrongly applied - see the many discourses on this on LinkedIn), I think the remaining three are not necessarily “bad” but those seeking “strategy” can sometimes see these as end points in themselves - and not part of the conversation and connected to a wider systems discourse that should exist. You do need MVV (no reason to exist without purpose will ensure a lack of identity), you do need aspirations (no target 🎯 will yield no effort), and you do need stakeholder input (else culture will eat the proverbial strategy all day long)- all are needed I believe without question. But I think the key issue here is how do you get to each of these tools (the strategy journey), understand their outputs (strategic objectives) and make best use of what follows (strategic action). To invoke Box: all strategy models are wrong - but some are useful. It is our job to identify how we make them useful and convey and use for others to benefit. Doing so rapidly, iterating, improving, restarting, re-implementing, eventually succeeding and all the while learning is why strategy ends up being “hard”.
Steve Seager
1w
Mihai, thank you for another brilliant post. Loving the "sent from God" approach to strategy formulation... and more. I needed that laugh to head into Christmas :))
Insightful summary of bad strategy development approaches
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1wMihai Ionescu- Here are some thoughts on this topic- this popped up in my linkedin today. I think these all play a part IF (repeat IF) written well - MVV-Driven: When well-crafted, MVV could provide a flexible guiding framework that can adapt to future challenges while maintaining organizational identity. We have seen the team come alive when writing a new aspirational positioning for the company. SWOT-Driven: SWOT analysis, especially when combined with TOWS matrix, can dynamically link internal capabilities with external factors, enabling more actionable and relevant strategies. Imagine combining the Strength and opportunity to create what is an optimal strategy to use leveraging your current strengths. I think all these are roadmaps. If not worked on, they could be as bad as a theoretical approach. #thoughts.