Strategy deployment
& execution are entering uncharted waters.
A magical capability is emerging, a ‘big blue genie’ if you will, of
awesome promise, and more than a little peril. How do we harness the Genie’s power
while mitigating the risks? What does it mean for Leaders & the practice of
management?
The Fundamental Questions of Strategy
Almost all strategies
can be expressed in terms of the marvelous mnemonic What, Why, How:
·
What are we trying to
achieve?
·
Why do we want to do
this?
·
How will we do this?
Indeed, the leader’s Job
One is defining our Aspiration (What), rationale (Why) and winning logic (a high-level
expression of How). Up until very recently, our What has always been
constrained by the How. Do we
have the workforce, technology, machinery, capacity, governance & management
system, supply chain, time and energy? Do we have the financial resources to
plug gaps in any of these?
My Japanese senseis
always encouraged me to imagine the ‘Ideal Condition’. What does perfection look like? Imagine the perfect process, production line,
value stream, factory, and new model launch. As my practice expanded into new
Growth using exponential methods, I tried to imagine the perfect customer
journey, innovation sprint, experiment cycle, MLP, MMP, MVP, senior leader
playback & pitch, and the like.
But I’ve always felt
the constraining How. Just how
are we going to do this, given all the blockers including our ever-present resource
constraints? I know I’m not alone. Keeping
an eye on the How as you define the What & Why is an element of prudent leadership.
For example, asking a team to do something that is physically impossible is a
morale killer. (Do they have any idea what we have to deal with every day?)
But the How can be a dark cloud that intimidates
a team & constrains our vision.
The Constraint is no Longer ‘How?’
Agentic AI is akin to
a magic lantern. We now have access to big blue Genei with magical powers. The
Genie is neither good nor bad, but simply carries out the ‘master’s’ wishes,
quite literally, and therein lies the peril. Ask the Genie to ‘increase the value
of our investment portfolio’ and he or she will come up with multiple strategies,
some immoral or illegal. Most people would agree that we lack the safety
systems to constrain the worst of these tendencies. Hopefully, we’ll have enlightened regulation
before too long to protect society from such risks.
In any event, the AI
Genie makes the How less daunting. Case in point: our innovation sprints in the
consumer goods industry entail significant social media content creation
including Shorts, Explainer Videos, Landing Pages in a wide variety of
channels. We use these to help answer core Growth questions - (Who is the customer?
What do they value? What do they buy or not buy…?).
Repurpose our
extensive inventory of assets would be great, but it’s a lot of work and many
partners have lacked the resources – until now. In a recent gig we were able to
quickly create AI agents that do this work quickly, easily & affordably.
Net result: we can run many more experiments, harvest better insights quicker &
nimbly adjust our offering so that we get closer & closer to our Blue
Ocean. In other words, the How is no longer the constraint. The
constraint is now…
Imagining the What
What is the Ideal condition? My senseis’ question takes on a deeper
significance. The ‘What’ is no longer our strategic constraint – our imagination
is the constraint. Can we envision
perfection, can we let our imagination free unconstrained by the tyranny of the
How? The Leader’s Job One is now not
merely ‘What should be happening?’ but ‘What is the Ideal?’ How long will it take senior leaders and the Board to
fully absorb this? And how do we build this into our governance and management
system? More to come
Best wishes,
Pascal Dennis E: pascal.dennis@leansystems.org
No comments:
Post a Comment