(The fourth in a series of posts on "Is your strategy a duck?". Starting post is here.)
Benedikt's third component of realism in architecture is that of "materiality". That is, for a building to be real "it ought to be made of stuff". A building needs to be made of materials that "look like what they are".
For a strategy to be material, Liedtka argues, it needs to clearly link to the reality of the system on the ground. It needs to take into account the details of what will be involved in implementing it. And it needs to do that credibly.
Friday, November 9, 2007
Significance
(The third in a series of posts on "Is your strategy a duck?". Starting post is here.)
Benedikt's second component of realism in architecture is that of "significance". And what's important here is significance of the building to an individual - not the building being "symbolic of something".
Here Liedtka unpacks the idea that a strategy needs to engage at "the level of individual action". It needs to engage everyone in the organisation - including those on the shop floor.
According to Liedtka, strategies become significant when they help employees answer two questions:
Benedikt's second component of realism in architecture is that of "significance". And what's important here is significance of the building to an individual - not the building being "symbolic of something".
Here Liedtka unpacks the idea that a strategy needs to engage at "the level of individual action". It needs to engage everyone in the organisation - including those on the shop floor.
According to Liedtka, strategies become significant when they help employees answer two questions:
- "What does this mean to me in my role in the organisation?"
- "Why should I care?"
Presence
(The second in a series of posts on "Is your strategy a duck?". Starting post is here.)
Benedikt's first component of realism in architecture is that of "presence". There is something about the building that commands attention.
How does a strategy command attention? Liedtka makes clear that to grab attention a strategy must be interesting. How so? To be interesting a strategy must:
Benedikt's first component of realism in architecture is that of "presence". There is something about the building that commands attention.
How does a strategy command attention? Liedtka makes clear that to grab attention a strategy must be interesting. How so? To be interesting a strategy must:
- Combine the familiar and the novel. Too familiar and we will ignore it as nothing new. Too novel and it will seem too way out to be credible.
- Be unified and simple. Avoiding needless complexity and jargon: and easily suggesting action.
- Be delivered by someone "we know and take seriously". Usually our line manager - which of course requires that our line manager is also engaged with this strategy. (This reminds me of Aristotle's ethos of the speaker - more on this another time).
"Is your strategy a duck?"
Jeanne Liedtka asks this question in a recent article in the Journal of Business Strategy (Vol 27, No. 5, 2006). Her presenting problem is the "Knowing-Doing Gap" - why is it that so many organisations fail to turn their strategies into outcomes? Liedtka's hypothesis: too many corporate strategies are "ducks".
Liedtka takes this idea of a "duck" from the architecture book "Learning from Las Vegas" (Robert Venturi, Denise Scott Brown, Steven Izenour, 1977, MIT Press). Here Venturi et al define a "duck" as a "building-becoming-sculpture". A building that has sacrificed so much for symbolism that it fails to be useful as a building. (You can read a good discussion of Venturi et al's book, as well as a picture of the original offending duck, at John Lumea's blog, here).
So, the question to ask, and Liedtka asks it well, is - can strategies be ducks too? The answer is clearly yes. As Liedtka shows, there are "strategies that function as symbols, not roadmaps." Strategies that are "high level abstractions" that leave most people in the organisation "clueless" as to what they mean.
The solution is to make strategies "real". And it's here that Liedtka returns to architecture for inspiration. Michael Benedikt's book "For an Architecture of Reality" (Lumen Books, NY, 1987) sets forth four components of a building "that contribute ... to a sense of realism":
Liedtka goes on to apply these ideas to strategy - in an attempt to answer the question: what can make a strategy real?
Liedtka takes this idea of a "duck" from the architecture book "Learning from Las Vegas" (Robert Venturi, Denise Scott Brown, Steven Izenour, 1977, MIT Press). Here Venturi et al define a "duck" as a "building-becoming-sculpture". A building that has sacrificed so much for symbolism that it fails to be useful as a building. (You can read a good discussion of Venturi et al's book, as well as a picture of the original offending duck, at John Lumea's blog, here).
So, the question to ask, and Liedtka asks it well, is - can strategies be ducks too? The answer is clearly yes. As Liedtka shows, there are "strategies that function as symbols, not roadmaps." Strategies that are "high level abstractions" that leave most people in the organisation "clueless" as to what they mean.
The solution is to make strategies "real". And it's here that Liedtka returns to architecture for inspiration. Michael Benedikt's book "For an Architecture of Reality" (Lumen Books, NY, 1987) sets forth four components of a building "that contribute ... to a sense of realism":
Liedtka goes on to apply these ideas to strategy - in an attempt to answer the question: what can make a strategy real?
Thursday, November 8, 2007
"The Magic of Dialogue" (2)
The first chapter of Yankelovich's book offers a definition of dialogue - straight from Webster's dictionary: "seeking mutual understanding and harmony". Although Yankelovich then goes on to downplay the harmony bit and says he'd be happy to settle just for understanding. Interestingly, he quotes Martin Buber ("I and Thou") who draws a distinction between "ordinary conversation" and dialogue. It seems the key thing with dialogue is the willingness to suspend judgement and just to listen to the other person. You don't have to agree - but you do have to listen so as to understand (pp14 - 15).
The chapter gets really interesting when Yankelovich quotes physicist David Bohm as saying that "world class" physicists get their best ideas in dialogue with other physicists and not sitting at their desks. He then extends this link between dialogue and thought by talking about how the American public does democracy. The American public doesn't reach decisions based on expert analysis - rather it reaches decisions using dialogue. And in so doing it is "harking back to prescientific ways of knowing" (p26).
To drive home this point - that dialogue is a "way of knowing" - a way of arriving at decisions - Yankelovich gives the example of ETS (p28). This is a non-profit organisation that administers the SAT and other college tests. Yankelovich's summary is worth quoting here:
"Plenty of information exists about the strengths and limitations of standardised tests. ETS's board takes these facts into account. But the facts do not reveal to the Board what its vision for the future should be or the best strategy for achieving it. Only high quality dialogue among its diverse members and professional staff can yield this kind of understanding and judgement." (p28)
Of course this reminds me of Aristotle's two roads to truth - logic and rhetoric. Both of which are strictly "prescientific". And of course, Cicero's observation that governing Carthage isn't going to be successful if all we do is take the "facts into account". How we decide to govern Carthage will only be worked out in "high quality dialogue".
The chapter gets really interesting when Yankelovich quotes physicist David Bohm as saying that "world class" physicists get their best ideas in dialogue with other physicists and not sitting at their desks. He then extends this link between dialogue and thought by talking about how the American public does democracy. The American public doesn't reach decisions based on expert analysis - rather it reaches decisions using dialogue. And in so doing it is "harking back to prescientific ways of knowing" (p26).
To drive home this point - that dialogue is a "way of knowing" - a way of arriving at decisions - Yankelovich gives the example of ETS (p28). This is a non-profit organisation that administers the SAT and other college tests. Yankelovich's summary is worth quoting here:
"Plenty of information exists about the strengths and limitations of standardised tests. ETS's board takes these facts into account. But the facts do not reveal to the Board what its vision for the future should be or the best strategy for achieving it. Only high quality dialogue among its diverse members and professional staff can yield this kind of understanding and judgement." (p28)
Of course this reminds me of Aristotle's two roads to truth - logic and rhetoric. Both of which are strictly "prescientific". And of course, Cicero's observation that governing Carthage isn't going to be successful if all we do is take the "facts into account". How we decide to govern Carthage will only be worked out in "high quality dialogue".
"The Magic of Dialogue" (1)
I've just started reading Daniel Yankelovich's "The Magic of Dialogue" (Simon and Schuster, New York, 2001). This book was recommended by a friend of mine with a keen interest in reconciliation and the uses of dialogue in those very difficult situations. However, this book aims to give "special attention" (p14) to the use of dialogue in businesses and organisations with similar structures to businesses.
Like Gaul, the book is divided into three parts:
Like Gaul, the book is divided into three parts:
- Why dialogue's necessary.
- How to do it.
- Where else to do it (including an intriguingly named final chapter about the "struggle for the soul of America").
Watch this space.
Leveraging design
Maureen Thurston, in a soon to be published article, attempts a definition of what it means for an organisation to "leverage design". The key idea is to lift design out of one particular product silo - where it typically plays a tactical, down-stream role, and position it as a peer of Marketing, Strategy, Finance and Operations. This allows design to play a broader role as well as to be held accountable and to be involved early on in key initiatives.
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