FUTURE TALENT November - January 2019/2020 | Page 62

T
TALKING HEADS
Moving from ‘what to do’ towards ‘how to be’
T
he
word
‘strategy’
derives from a
Greek word
meaning ‘general’. But the
word has also enjoyed
two non-military uses,
one political, the other
commercial.
Politicians will deploy
a ‘strategy’, especially in
reference to a ‘campaign
strategy’ (‘campaign’, also
hailing from the military).
In the commercial sphere,
most modern businesses
feel obliged to produce
a ‘strategy’, not least for
their shareholders and
potential investors.
Having said that, the
commercial use of the
term ‘strategy’ has fallen
back from its high-water
mark in the 1980s. The
Fordism of the early 20th
centur y had focused
almost exclusively on
efficiency. All businesses
could be treated as a
variety of factory from
w h i c h t h e g re a t e s t
productivity possible was
to be wrung out.
After the Second World
War, however, it became
apparent that you could
be productive and still
not profitable. You might
be doing things right at
the operational level, but
not at the strategic level.
Hence the rise of strategy.
Instead of cranking the
handle faster, the question
became which handle
to crank.
This new emphasis
on strategy of the 1980s
62 // Future Talent
went hand in hand with the
rise of the management
consul tancies . These
companies, having
evolved from their origins
in accountancy, were hired
less to reduce costs or
improve processes than
to produce sophisticated
market analyses with
recommendations on
where to generate growth.
Strategy came to be
seen as the key source of
competitive advantage.
But just as ‘productivity’
was displaced, if not
deleted, by ‘strategy’,
so ‘strategy’ was
subsequently displaced
by ‘leadership’. The logic
went something like this:
your business can be
operationally efficient,
your strategy might be on
point, but if your leader(s)
cannot inspire people,
then the whole enterprise
remains at risk.
We are in the midst of
a further displacement
today, for the notion
of ‘ l e a d e r s h i p’ i n a
c o r p o ra te s e t t i n g i s
itself losing its lustre.
Thus, the coaching and
leadership development
programmes offered to
executives are increasingly
viewed as scarcely less
basic than health and
safety training. Besides, in
a networked environment,
‘leadership’ has come
to smack of old-school
hierarchy that might be a
drag on innovation.
Where does that leave
‘strategy’ today? The short
Robert Rowland
Smith
“The notion
of ‘leadership’ in a
corporate setting is
itself losing
its lustre”
answer is that, even if it
has been ‘displaced’ by
‘leadership’ and whatever
supersedes leadership,
it has its uses. It sits
alongside productivity,
leadership and innovation,
as part of a mix. Forgetting
about it would be naive.
And yet strategy needs
to be refashioned. One of
the reasons that strategy
fell out of favour was that
its horizons were cast
too far out. What was
the point of a five-year
strategy if your industry
was on the verge of being
disrupted tomorrow? And
yet strategy is all about
the long-term view. If
you replace a horizon of
five years with a horizon
of five minutes, you can
no longer be said to be
strategic. You are merely
reactive. So, on the one
hand, strategy needs to
take the long view. But
on the other hand, the
long-term approach runs
the risk of being eaten in
the short term. How to
escape this dilemma?
The answer lies in
shifting the meaning of
strategy from ‘what to
do’ towards ‘how to be’.
In the famously volatile,
uncertain, complex and
ambiguous world of today,
the choice regarding what
to do cannot remain stable
for very long. One day