Strategy, Culture and “Hypercompetition”.
Planning
An interesting report by Stanton Marris came out this week, as reported by Stephan Stern in tuesday’s FT, called: “Strategy evolution: adapting to a new world”. Stanton Marris interviewed 45 CEOs and other board directors to find out how they are wrestling with the question of strategic repositioning, which is particularly important given today’s extremely rapid market transitions, as we have argued earlier this year at the Montreal Webcom conference.
Although I have not read the full report, I might just be satisfied with the few elements already reported. Here are a few interesting finds:
- “Four principal tasks emerged as vital for a successful reinvention of strategy: uncovering hidden risks that undermine strategy; using the power of organisational identity; reviving the strategy process; and adapting leadership styles.“
- “In a battle between culture and strategy, culture usually wins.”
- “[...] the need to develop “emotionally intelligent strategy” — one that is meaningful and credible to employees.”
- “Leadership styles also have to be adapted. Candour works.”
- “In a world characterised by “hypercompetition” [...] sustained competitive advantage is impossible. Today, strategy has to be about constantly creating a series of “unsustainable advantages”.
Some of the messages here are very important and confirm something we have been advocating on this blog:
- Strategy must be embedded in a strong culture;
- Culture and the processes needed to define and celebrate it, makes strategy “emotionally intelligent”;
- Transparency and candour are key attributes supporting any strategic repositioning;
- Increasingly rapid market transitions and “hypercompetition” implies that strategy is made of small scale victories, not necessarily “grand slams”.