“No one should develop a strategy without taking into account the effects of organizational friction. Yet we continue to be surprised and frustrated when it manifests itself. We tend to think everything has gone wrong when in fact everything has gone normally.”
This from Stephen Bungay’s excellent book on getting strategy done, “The Art of Action”, highlights a continuing frustration I see in CEOs and leadership teams. Where we find that when Powerpoint meets humans, the outcome isn’t as predictable as the model would have had you believe.
I will be writing about Where Your Strategy Goes To Die (No 8) this week, namely when your strategy is a masterpiece of spreadsheets, not humans.
In the meanwhile, find this excellent book on Bookshop.org . You’ll be supporting independent bookstores, and the micro-commission will go to Microloans to women entrepreneurs in developing countries.
Will 2022 be another year of a strategy at best vaguely met? Of being a CEO unable to step back from the day-to-day to do the things your company needs to meet it's ambitions? Of having a purpose and values that don't directly connect to everything you do? We're looking for an intimate beta group of CEOs (10 to 40 employees) to join us on this upcoming webinar to talk through our Build on Purpose framework for making strategy, purpose and values happen.