Strategy is Iterative, There are No Right Answers – Making Strategy Fun Again (Part 3)

 

Why do smart people struggle with strategy? Because smart people are used to having the right answer – and there’s no such thing in strategy. Humbling, no?

Strategy, like Innovation, exists in Aristotle’s World of Contingency – a strange place where things can be ‘other than they are’. This is the Land of Oz, the Rabbit Hole, the Land of Lost Logic, the World Behind the Curtain – pick your metaphor. It’s a place where ‘normal’ rules, conventions, and scientific truths don’t usually apply, or they do for a while & then they stop.

We’re used to Aristotle’s World of Necessity – where there are universal truths, and a bedrock of scientific knowledge. In the World of Necessity, the laws of mathematics, engineering, production physics, OpEx/Lean, finance and accounting and the like apply in a predictable way. We can figure things out following proven recipes like root cause problem solving.  One of my favorite auto manufacturing sayings is ‘Follow the recipe, and you get a Big Mac every time!’

In the World of Contingency, by contrast, you follow the recipe and sometimes you get a cheese quesadilla or a corned beef sandwich or a plate of tofu! What’s true in Innovation is true in Strategy.

Strategy is Iterative

‘We are ignorant armies clashing by night’, said Matthew Arnold. The great military strategist, Carl von Clausewitz described the inevitability of ‘Friction’.  Secretary of Defence, Paul Rumsfeld, baffled journalists with abstruse allusions to ‘known knowns, known unknowns, and unknown unknowns’. What to do?

·       Accept that Strategy (and Innovation) live in the uncertain world of Contingency.

·       Experiment, experiment, experiment – dispel the fog through quick, cheap experiments that shine light on the path. ‘Fail fast, fail forward,’ as the saying goes.

·       I would add ‘and Learn Easy.’  Keep it light and fun – people learn best when they’re laughing.

·       Analyze using the marvelous tools of AI but recognize their limitations.

·       Thereby develop intuition, ‘taste,’ gut feel, and business savvy

Strategy is iteration, strategy is doing and learning. Be humbler and accept you’re in a different world where different laws apply. Be rigorous in your process – insist on clear testable hypotheses based on a deep grasp of your current condition. Insist on rapid feedback loops and visual management so that everybody knows what’s happening. Make problem solving and innovation thinking central to your management system. Engage everybody in improvement.  Provide continual nudges in this direction – celebrate great hypotheses, great experimentation and learning.  Promote your best & brightest learners.

Best wishes,

Pascal Dennis         E: pascal.dennis@leansystems.org