making moves— what some call ‘strategy’

There’s only one reason to do strategy: To get reassurance about the future.

Most businesses want a strategy which avoids loss, gets more new customers, and keeps existing customers longer—-at ever increasing margins.

But here’s the biggest strategy problem. Most businesses use strategy processes which are nothing but seductive deception. They tempt with a promise of fantasy future. Then reverse engineer to an idealised picture of the current state.

Look away. Don’t be taken in. It’s not life and it’s also bad science. Businesses are complex adaptive systems which have to be monitored by feedback loops, and probed forward with safe-to-fail experiments. In other words they are complex and messy. You can’t dictate the future but you can shape it—like raising talented teenagers.

You need a strategy toolkit which reflects this, and shows you how to exploit the uncertainty that few others see. And the output has to be intriguing and beneficial to your colleagues. The content has to be communicated clearly, simply and persuasively if you want really change the organisation.

If that’s what you want, that’s what you’ll get here.

The strategy Mapping Method

  1. The importance of situational awareness

In an ever-changing and unpredictable world you need to quickly discover where your options for action are. You need to see what's really happening around you and how it's evolving. This is Situational Awareness.

2. Mapping your Landscape

Smart leaders start with a map so they can see the current situation clearly and discover where they can act. In fact, most of us use maps to do this in our day to day lives but we don't do this in business. Why?

3. Economic Rules of the Game

Although the future is unpredictable you can anticipate how your landscape is going to change by applying the 'Economic Rules of the Game' to your map, which helps you discover WHERE your options for action are.

4. Move Maker

Smart leaders focus first on discovering WHERE they can make moves, before deciding on WHY these moves over others. This is how you start to shape the landscape and conditions to your advantage.

INCREASING ADAPTIVENESS

Once you have awareness about where you're going to attack the market and the moves you can make you need to make sure you can execute. The greater your organisation's Adaptivity Intelligence (AQ) the more effectively it will be able to act. You increase your AQ by adopting 40 key principles (habits and skills).