A recent article in McKinsey Quarterly reads “Few CEOs claim to be happy with the way their companies come up with strategy. Most say that the annual strategy-planning process yields few good ideas and is often fraught with politics.”
Visions of a Grand Old Strategy Wizard
When I was new to the corporate world and even later when I went to study management — Strategy was my favorite subject. A colleague in office saying “strategic implications of the latest competitive move” would light up my eyes. I had visions of becoming a grand strategy wizard one day…Now that I often work on “strategy” rather than “implementation” I have found that life is not only not rosy…it is frustrating also. Why exactly is strategy building so painful? The obvious reason is politics inherent in a large corporate. Then there are several reasons that a “great” strategy — as it appears to you — may appear “crap” to someone else…It shouldn’t come as a surprise that SAP was a software developed by engineers at IBM — who decided to go their own rather than build SAP as a new multi-billion BU at IBM. AltaVista went from DEC to several acquiring companies until it just lost direction…
Its all Fuzzy
(1) Actually, it is all fuzzy. Every manager and top Mgmt guy has “his” own view on what the strategy should be. It is as much a political process as an intellectual process. So, if your view does not agree with the view of someone influential — then your nice Power Point presentation will be ignored after a polite hearing.
The grand BU fight and Metrics for Managing Ambiguity
2) Each Business Unit has an agenda in the organization. Some obvious ones are “greatest revenue earner”, “most profitable”, “most innovative”…If your strategy cuts across Bus, you may have had it! Get ready for sudden appearances of acidity, sleeplessness, or body ache for months, quarters, or even a full year. Then get ready to change your job because your annual review may not be to your liking. Why? Management includes managing a lot of ambiguity. Suddenly from doing product releases you get involved in strategic issues — what will the company do 18 months later. This is uneasy territory. Several incremental steps are involved in strategy formulation — often over several quarters and there are few metrics for measuring that you are superb at managing ambiguity and therefore deserve a great raise!
What happens finally?
3) So how does top management come up with that great strategy that shows up on the industry event? My guess is that top management patiently waits for senior managers to deliver something. When senior managers cannot offer anything cohesive, top management goes into panic mode. They call aside their trusted lieutenants and ask them to assemble the presentation for their upcoming industry event in two nights and report directly to them. Finally, this is the presentation that the CEO would show. It is all my guess, but I have seen enough in several large companies to disbelieve myself.
So the next time your carefully prepared strategy presentation bombs — try to not take it too harsh on yourself. Someone’s management speak of “yes but your suggested product does not align well with the long term growth agenda” may just mean that your ideas are bright but “I don’t like them” or “I am too brain dead to grasp the next big thing that will hit the industry” or that your ideas are good but you haven’t presented them in a “way that I like to see presentations.” So go back and redo the whole thing. Period.
Surviving it all
If you can survive all this, you will learn that your thoughts will appear somewhere else in a different presentation with different graphics. Your brilliant ideas would eventually shape a large part of the final strategy that the company eventually decides to adopt (if it finally does!)! That maybe your only solace! J
