By Morgen Witzel
Published: January 17 2008 02:00 | Last updated: January 17 2008 02:00
Ask almost any successful athlete the secret of their success and you will hear words such as "preparation" and "training", along with "commitment", "determination" and "the will to win". Athletes excel because they want to, and have trained body and mind to give the highest possible level of performance.
So it is with businesses. Over and over again, academic studies and practical experienceshow that preparation, organisation and determination are critical factors for achieving strategic goals.
That has not stopped gurus and would-be gurus from flooding us with books that purport to offer recipes for being good at strategy. Usually these are based on a limited number of examples of - apparently - successful companies. Too many guides to strategy are based on little more than the authors' own opinions.
So it is a relief to turn to Fast Strategy, by Yves Doz of Insead and Mikko Kosonen, a former senior executive of Nokia. It is even more of a relief to learn that the book is based on high-level research, in this case among international information and communications technology companies. These businesses were chosen, say the authors, "in the same way that geneticists go for fruit flies: because they reproduce and mutate fast". So where better to study strategic agility than in a sector where rapid change and evolution are so pronounced?
Doz and Kosonen argue that, just as with athletes, the secret to strategic success lies in preparedness. Like athletes, these companies are nimble, flexible and fast in their reactions, but they do not become that way overnight. To become a "fast company" takes much training and preparation. In particular there are three areas on which companies must concentrate.
The first is strategic sensitivity, in effect awareness of what is happening around us, and of what is going to happen next. Fast companies become very good at scanning for information.
The second area is "collective commitment". Managers must be ready to take decisions together, and quickly, so as to maximise opportunities, rather than being stuck in "individual hesitancy" and "bureaucratic politics".
The third area is "resource fluidity" which means simply that companies can deploy the right resources - human resources, capital, technology - quickly and to the point of greatest need.
The authors go on to describe a training regime to help companies and managers become faster and more agile. There are no recipes for success. Instead, there are measures that companies can take to effect real improvements. In terms of strategic sensitivity the authors run through a wide range of concepts, including collaboration with external agents, using internal dialogue to create greater awareness and understanding, ways of dealing with contradictory information, and so on.
"None of these capabilities alone suffices to maintain strategic sensitivity," they warn. Consequently, a company must not only make itself more flexible but also create a mindset where people are ready to take action.
Chapter titlessuch as "Mobilising minds" and "Energising hearts" may put some readers off. However, the latter chapter, which deals with maintaining momentum, avoiding stagnation and drawing strength from human emotions, is as good an exposition as has been seen in recent years. Here, as throughout, the style is simple and the content full of common sense.
There is little in the way of jargon or buzzwords, although terms such as "open strategy" and "thought experiments" sometimes need a bit of definition. But in general this isequally readable by students and board executives.
Machiavelli argued five centuries ago that strategic success depended on two concepts: virtú , or preparedness and readiness, and fortuna , the ability to recognise opportunities and take advantage of them. In Fast Strategy , Doz and Kosonen have taken strategy back to its roots. From them we learn again that it is what happens in the mind, not what is written down on paper or rendered into PowerPoint slides, that ultimately matters.
Reading this book does not guarantee you will become a successful strategist. But it will show what you need to do, how you need to learn to think and act, in order to reach that goal.
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2008
Published: January 17 2008 02:00 | Last updated: January 17 2008 02:00
Ask almost any successful athlete the secret of their success and you will hear words such as "preparation" and "training", along with "commitment", "determination" and "the will to win". Athletes excel because they want to, and have trained body and mind to give the highest possible level of performance.
So it is with businesses. Over and over again, academic studies and practical experienceshow that preparation, organisation and determination are critical factors for achieving strategic goals.
That has not stopped gurus and would-be gurus from flooding us with books that purport to offer recipes for being good at strategy. Usually these are based on a limited number of examples of - apparently - successful companies. Too many guides to strategy are based on little more than the authors' own opinions.
So it is a relief to turn to Fast Strategy, by Yves Doz of Insead and Mikko Kosonen, a former senior executive of Nokia. It is even more of a relief to learn that the book is based on high-level research, in this case among international information and communications technology companies. These businesses were chosen, say the authors, "in the same way that geneticists go for fruit flies: because they reproduce and mutate fast". So where better to study strategic agility than in a sector where rapid change and evolution are so pronounced?
Doz and Kosonen argue that, just as with athletes, the secret to strategic success lies in preparedness. Like athletes, these companies are nimble, flexible and fast in their reactions, but they do not become that way overnight. To become a "fast company" takes much training and preparation. In particular there are three areas on which companies must concentrate.
The first is strategic sensitivity, in effect awareness of what is happening around us, and of what is going to happen next. Fast companies become very good at scanning for information.
The second area is "collective commitment". Managers must be ready to take decisions together, and quickly, so as to maximise opportunities, rather than being stuck in "individual hesitancy" and "bureaucratic politics".
The third area is "resource fluidity" which means simply that companies can deploy the right resources - human resources, capital, technology - quickly and to the point of greatest need.
The authors go on to describe a training regime to help companies and managers become faster and more agile. There are no recipes for success. Instead, there are measures that companies can take to effect real improvements. In terms of strategic sensitivity the authors run through a wide range of concepts, including collaboration with external agents, using internal dialogue to create greater awareness and understanding, ways of dealing with contradictory information, and so on.
"None of these capabilities alone suffices to maintain strategic sensitivity," they warn. Consequently, a company must not only make itself more flexible but also create a mindset where people are ready to take action.
Chapter titlessuch as "Mobilising minds" and "Energising hearts" may put some readers off. However, the latter chapter, which deals with maintaining momentum, avoiding stagnation and drawing strength from human emotions, is as good an exposition as has been seen in recent years. Here, as throughout, the style is simple and the content full of common sense.
There is little in the way of jargon or buzzwords, although terms such as "open strategy" and "thought experiments" sometimes need a bit of definition. But in general this isequally readable by students and board executives.
Machiavelli argued five centuries ago that strategic success depended on two concepts: virtú , or preparedness and readiness, and fortuna , the ability to recognise opportunities and take advantage of them. In Fast Strategy , Doz and Kosonen have taken strategy back to its roots. From them we learn again that it is what happens in the mind, not what is written down on paper or rendered into PowerPoint slides, that ultimately matters.
Reading this book does not guarantee you will become a successful strategist. But it will show what you need to do, how you need to learn to think and act, in order to reach that goal.
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2008
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