Author Archives

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Strategy, in Pictures

I was often on the receiving end of jokes that suggested as a pilot I was in my element if equipped with a crayon, or as a pilot I would be expected to learn that much more if there were lots of pictures in whatever book I happened to be reading. All fun and games, to be sure. But let’s not kid ourselves; being engrossed in the subjects of strategy and strategic management, we tend to have an appreciation for cognitive processes, especially those that need to be leveraged to take on the content and context of strategy. As passionate advocates for strategy we are especially attuned to enhancing cognitive processes, in ways that help the organization’s decision-makers be responsive and adaptive to the rate of change. One such enhancement is the visual. In fact, visuals have been found to improve learning by up to 400 percent (visit shiftelearning.com).

It stands to reason, therefore, that any visual effort made to help us gain a better understanding of what we mean by “strategy” would be most welcome. This is precisely what is available to us with thanks to Joan Magretta (2020), most recently, as well as Howell J. Malham, Jr. (2013) some years ago. In I Have a Strategy – No You Don’t: The Illustrated Guide to Strategy, Malham does a splendid job sharing the essence of the military origins of the term, and by doing so demonstrates how challenging it is to understand it. Carl von Clausewitz is mentioned, who described strategy as “the use that is made of engagements for the object of war” thereby delineating the more abstract nature of the term. In more recent times another expert on grand strategy, Colin S. Gray, developed Clausewitz’ ideas emphasizing this utilitarian aspect, ambiguous as some might believe. Magretta, on the other hand, engages the reader by focusing on a somewhat different level of strategy, but one no less significant: corporate, business and competitive strategy. To do so, she leverages the work of Michael Porter, he of the “Five-Forces Framework” all strategists are encouraged to take in, to support their efforts to help their company respond to changing circumstances.

When strategy first hooked me I found myself thinking of it in terms of a verb. Surely all strategies can be expressed in this way, I thought. I wasn’t totally wrong, if one thinks in terms of merging, downsizing or acquiring, but I now know better. While Michael Porter’s emphasis on generic strategies (cost, differentiation and focus) has helped a great deal, I have come to appreciate that strategy is a little more complex, perhaps even a bit diabolical. This is what makes Magretta’s very colourful depiction of the concept so helpful. Make no mistake, her book is full of graphics, more than enough to keep even this pilot absorbed. Nevertheless, the strategist will be well served in terms of learning about strategy through Porter’s lens, and he or she will certainly be entertained to an extent. But, Malham’s depiction is more broad in its approach, and strategists as interested in the subject of strategy are encouraged to explore his depiction, so as to gain a sense of the meaning of strategy beyond the confines of the “Five-Forces Framework.”

To be clear, any serious strategist will probably agree Michael Porter deserves enormous gratitude, for his distillation of industrial economics that contributed to the “Five-Forces Framework” and “The Value Chain.” In The Lords of Strategy, by Walter Kiechel, Porter is held in the highest esteem, alongside Bruce Henderson (Boston Consulting Group), Bill Bain (Bain & Company) and the two authors of In Search of Excellence (Robert H. Waterman and Tom Peters). To refer to Porter’s concepts as but “tools,” in the hands of the strategist is probably understating their utility. To the contrary, taken together these concepts add a great deal of credibility to any attempt to cobble together the best “S.W.O.T.” on your firm. In Organizational Culture and Leadership, Edgar Schein expresses culture in part in terms of internal integration and external adaptation, clearly connecting the importance of understanding the inter-relationship of organizational culture to strategy and the “S.W.O.T.” process. Again, if strengths and weaknesses explore the internal, and opportunities and threats the external, when we put it all together we come to appreciate how helpful indeed Porter’s work has been to the strategist. Magretta’s illustrated book of 71 pages is a good investment for strategists the world over.

In comparison, Malham’s message regarding the meaning of business strategy focuses not so much on the tools available but more so on the concept of strategy. Just as strategy can be explained in terms of what your company should not be doing, as much as it can be explained in terms of what it should, the concept of strategy can be better understood if explained in terms of what it is not, as well as what it purports to be. Malham delivers this message in a witty, and at times hilarious way, across 210 pages, some of which only have one sentence. Both books are amusing, informative, joyful presentations of a topic that can be hard to get one’s head around, sometimes.

Dean Black, Certification Director, Association for Strategic Planning. Write to me at certificationdirector at strategyassociation.org

Joan Magretta, What is Strategy? An Illustrated Guide to Michael Porter. Harvard Business Review Press: Boston, Massachusetts, 2020. ISBN 978-163369-823-9

Howell J. Malham, Jr., I Have a Strategy. No You Don’t: The Illustrated Guide to Strategy. Jossey-Bass, A Wiley Imprint: San Francisco, California, 2013. ISBN 978-1-11848420-3

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Organizational Culture & Aviation

Organizational culture has been highlighted in a number of substantive aviation mishaps. Canada’s Institute of Corporate Directors’ Mary Jordan recently explained, “when culture doesn’t support strategy, bad things happen. Boeing’s 737 Max 8 disaster [is, to some,] an example of a cultural misfit that led to significant reputational damage, and worse, loss of life in the case of Boeing.” Robert L. Sumwalt adds to the evidence, claiming “NASA’s organizational culture and structure had as much to do with [the 2003 disintegration of the Space Shuttle Columbia] as the External Tank foam (CAIB, 2003, p. 177).”

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Organizational Culture – How it Forms

factory1“Leaders create culture, when they create the organization.” (Edgar Schein)

“There is no such thing as a good and bad culture – there’s only a culture that supports your strategy or doesn’t.” ICD Board Oversight of Culture Committee member, Mary Jordan

To Marvin Bower (1903-2003), author of The Will to Manage (1966), organizational culture is just “…the way…we do things around here”. Bower spoke in terms of the organization’s “philosophy,” believing workers take a stand when deciding how to perform tasks. In Authority (1980), Richard Sennett explored worker behaviour, saying “…it is easier to see the emotional commitments made in a family, than in a factory, [but] the emotional life in [the factory] is equally real”. Edgar Schein ( Organizational Culture and Leadership (2010) ) argued the processes of external adaptation and internal integration helped explain what Sennett and Bower revealed, and all three were probably inspired by Elliott Jaques who, in The Changing Culture of a Factory: A study of Authority and Participation in an Industrial Setting (1951) described three main organizational processes which seem to give form to what workers do: 1) the sanctioning of authority; 2) the operation of authority (the executive system); and, 3) social adaptation. Jaques emphasized, “the general suspicion and anxieties, of individuals and groups, are liable to become attached to particular practical issues and difficulties, so much so that the resolution, of these practical and, maybe, trivial difficulties, is thereby seriously obstructed.” Sennett’s reference to emotions seems to  illuminate the challenges leaders face in terms of change management and their responsibilities vis-a-vis innovation.