Strategy Is More Than Analysis
We are all familiar with the scene: A group of presumably brilliant strategy consultants, perched around a conference table in a spacious Board Room, are preparing to mesmerize an equally brilliant group of C-level company executives who see their role as the stewards of strategy. The CFO and CIO, along with their assorted staff members, and perhaps the CKO, CCO and CSO in larger companies, are all in attendance. The CEO is notably absent.
The room might as well be empty.
With the mistaken view that strategy is an analytical function — a form of economic chess played by experts — strategy has become an arcane discipline prepared by Lieutenants, deployed by Captains and executed by Soldiers. The General is not only on the sidelines, he is somewhere off the battlefield altogether.
This type of battlefield has become the norm in all too many cases, and the person who knows the company’s purpose better than anyone, is MIA.
In the words of Cynthia Montgomery, the Timken Professor of Business Administration and head of the strategy unit at Harvard Business School, “Strategy has come to be seen as an analytical problem to be solved.”
The danger of this approach is that it may seem unworthy of the company president, and the result may be a workable, but ultimately inadequate strategy.
In too many cases where the CEO is absent, strategy may become a competitive game plan, separate from the company’s larger sense of purpose.
The CEO “is properly the company’s chief strategist”, according to Montgomery, and the one person who must “translate purpose into practice.”
Strategy is more than seeking competitive advantage over time. The proof can be seen in the actions of Lou Gerstner at IBM in the 1990′s, or Steve Jobs at Apple in the last few years. As CEO’s they both knew, in the words of Cynthia Montgomery, that “watching over strategy day in and day out is the CEO’s greatest opportunity to shape the firm as well as outwit the competition.”
Strategy is more than analysis. It is the CEO’s vision, executed.
"Give me faith, freedom, resources, and a little time ... and I will make things happen that matter." Michael R.H. Stewart is a respected Internet executive with broad experience in all aspects of online business, with an emphasis given to social networking development, and company management. He has over 65,000 engaged Twitter followers (http://twitter.com/jerichotech). He enjoys 20 years of direct experience with corporate, entrepreneurial, governmental and non-profit clients, having advised them on all aspects of their online initiatives. Prior to his Internet career, he served as a Senior Vice President of AIG Marketing, doing business in 135 foreign countries as well as the United States. Stewart is an experienced public speaker and communicator, with worldwide experience; an expert on corporate branding; an accomplished writer (his new book, Trajectory, is being published in January, 2012), a creative thinker and problem solver.
