The shape and force of outside pressures surely impacts how a company works to respond.
Inside the walls of businesses today, the pressure to continuously improve is relentless. The world of centralised organisations, multi-year product cycles, and one-way communication to customers and markets is fading fast. All this change brings with it some good news: a more diverse and educated workforce.
In 2010, there are more millennials (Gen Y) than Baby Boomers in the workforce. This new workforce not only expects to be involved, but applies their talents only when they can be fully engaged. The way strategy creation takes place inside businesses is the key to being able to respond rapidly and fluidly as a whole firm to what's happening in your marketplace.
Winning depends on fully completed strategy now more than ever before.
The question becomes, "How does each of us create the most value for ourselves as individuals while enabling value creation for our teams and for the business as a whole?" Each of us, of course, works at creating value at all these levels, and more. Our firms seek to add value to the larger industry, and that industry hopes to add value not just for shareholders but to society at large.
Creating value fuels businesses.
Creating value fuels businesses.
Strategy creation is about understanding, debating, and co-building ideas.
Generating great strategies is the creative act of people on a team. Why does that matter? Because if you're not in the room to advocate, deliberate, and contribute what you have to offer - essentially, to fight over the value of ideas for the benefit of the company - then you and your firm are missing a huge opportunity. Just by saying that you don't agree, or that you don't know enough yet, or that you've identified conditions that need to be met, your participation is key to making the whole thing work.
Without each of us showing up with our best contribution, we cannot change the way strategy gets created. We must show up and engage.
For most of us, leading is a privilege that comes in addition to our regular, everyday workloads, work that each of us must perform flawlessly because resources (talent, budgets, headcount and schedules) aren't as abundant as we might want or need.
Leading collaborative strategy is not as easy as it looks.
Managing cadence, generating ideas, nurturing a safe culture, developing connections, engaging the issues, and tracing the topography of the conversation, workflow and decisions are task independent. Meaning that, when you do them, you are leading co-creators, not just a leader of any particular effort to solve a problem.
As a leader, you will foster the necessary learning, discovery, debates and discussions; provide the context; set the cadence; decide when to move on; and know what happens next.
It's a tough role, but it's a fun one, because you get to help an entire crew of people bring their passion and ideas to the table to benefit the business.
And without someone managing these responsibilities, the collaboration process won't work.
Source: Nilofer Merchant: The New How: Creating Business Solutions Through Collaborative Strategy
