The article brought up an interesting concept of ” five levels of strategy” , to provide a solution of a general problem” fancy plans and little action”. The steps of creating an effective strategy share a lot of similarities with the steps of designing a house.
Level 1 Set out basic principles.
Level 2 Roughly sketch.
Level 3 Identify the main organizational units responsible for different parts of the strategy and the operating model that links these organisational units together.
Level 4 Specify the people, the money and the time needed for each sub-task within each unit.
Level 5 the inevitable adjustments that need to be made as events unfold.
Interestingly, we can see that strategy is a mix of both science and arts, and should be planned but requires some scope for adjustments in case unforeseen problems or opportunities arise.
The problem for most company is that they build their strategies upside down. They start with the big idea, but run out of energy, motivation or interest before accomplishing the details of their plan. Therefore, implementation should be emphasized more than the construction of the strategy.
Link: http://blogs.hbr.org/2013/11/what-strategists-can-learn-from-architecture/
One Comment
Not so much “upside down” for me. In fact, what I see is that the tradition start-up closely follows these 5 steps. The rot sets in when they get obsessed with designing the perfect building (step 3 and 4), not noticing the time flies and that things change. They may end up with a grandiose and exquisite skycraper only to find out most people have long emigrated to somewhere else.