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we also deal with leadership in the book
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what why would we begin with leadership
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in a book on strategy it's because we're
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interested in the in winning outcomes
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the the whole point of strategy and that
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requires the execution and the
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orchestration of these approaches in the
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ambidextrous organization now the
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problem is that the classical model of
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leadership cascading instructions based
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on experience and judgment down a
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hierarchical organization and then
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managing execution against those
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instructions
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what's perfectly fine in a classical
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environment but it won't work in say an
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adaptive environment that is much more
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unpredictable and it's simply not
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possible for the leader to be having a
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stable instruction set and so that the
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question becomes how does a leader
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animate the collage of approaches
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multiple approaches across an
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organization and in the book we deal
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with eight facets of leadership that
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need to be taken into consideration in
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the new environment let me just touch on
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a few of them so firstly somebody needs
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to diagnose and segment these different
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approaches to strategy which approach to
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strategy in which part of the
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organization and somebody needs to
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disrupt in other words somebody needs to
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say yes that as approach to strategy is
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not the approach that we need right now
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somebody needs to coach and deploy pick
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the right people and develop the right
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people to be deployed against the right
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approach to strategy because each
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requires a different cognitive skill set
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and we talked about the need for
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Inquisition for questioning namely where
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we can't have a stable instruction set
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sometimes the best we can do is to ask
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really great questions so leaders need
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to be really good at getting to the
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bottom of things by by asking the right
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questions so if you like we define the
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skill set of the ambidextrous leader
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the title of the book is your strategy
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needs a strategy mentions the word
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strategy twice but in fact the book is
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not about strategy
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it's about effective strategy in other
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words it's about obtaining the winning
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outcomes which are the very reason why
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we use the word strategy in the first
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place and therefore necessarily we need
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to think also about implementation
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now just as we've said that strategy is
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not one thing we think that
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implementation is not one thing the
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actions were required to implement
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strategies vary according to the
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situation and not only that but the
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relationship between implementing and
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strategizing also varies according to
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the environment so let me give you two
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examples in the classical environment
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the strategizing may consist largely of
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analyzing opportunities and deriving a
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plan and the implementing may consist of
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remote execution against that stable
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plan and performance monitoring of that
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execution against the plan let's think
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about that software company this
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implementing adaptive strategy really
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the equation is turned upside down and
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inside out because it starts with
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experiments from empowered employees at
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the coal face of the company trying new
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things and some of those new things work
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and are picked up and communicated and
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amplified and what a strategy strategy
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is the continuous stream of improved
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ideas the results from those actions so
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in this particular case strategizing
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cannot be separated from action and
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actually the action the experiment comes
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before the strategy the strategy is a
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result of the implementation if you like
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and if we went through each of the
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styles of strategy you'd find that this
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relationship between strategy and
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implementation and the nature of
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implementation varies in each case so
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what we really need is not just
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different approaches to strategizing in
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different environments but different
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approaches to strategizing implement a
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implementing innovation culture
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leadership of all aspects of business in
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each environment
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so in the process of writing the book we
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had a little strategic problem of our
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own in fact two problems one of them is
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that our research showed us that CEOs
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would probably be interested in what we
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had to say but they may not read the
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whole book we needed a more concise form
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of communication the second inconvenient
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truth was that we found that in our
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survey 150 multinationals we found that
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the right beliefs about the environment
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and about the choice of approach to
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strategy did not correlate perfectly
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with the right behaviors so if you like
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understanding was insufficient necessary
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but insufficient to be doing the right
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things so the solution to this was
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really two things the first one was to
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write a very compact first chapters of
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the book that could be read in its own
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right and the the second one was to
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build a game a game for the iPad where
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we led with experience so the game is
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quite a fun game we take the five
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boroughs of New York New York where I
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happen to live why New York because it
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has five there's the number of
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approaches to strategy and the idea is
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to win against a fictional opponent
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called Bruce who is named after a
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founder Bruce Henderson a great
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strategist in in selling lemonade from a
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lemonade stand in each of these
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environments and the tricky part is that
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Bruce is a raised fierce component and
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each environment requires you to not
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only think but more importantly to act
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out a very different approach to
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strategy so through experiencing these
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different environments you develop a
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muscle memory for what an adaptive
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strategy feels like for what a visionary
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strategy feels like and then you can go
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backwards into the content you can ask
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what happened in that game you can read
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a little bit about the particular
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approach to strategy that was required
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in that particular environment and you
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can even click through and and and by
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the book if you're interested so that's
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the idea of the game
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many of the approaches that we detail in
00:06:19
the book may be challenging but not so
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challenging if you're doing them afresh
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if you're doing them as as a startup
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if you're a ecommerce company and you're
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putting place a digital marketplace it
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may be hard in its own right but you you
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don't have to negate the past to do so
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large corporations have a challenge on
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top of that which is they have to move
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away from over previously successful
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recipe and adopt a newer unknown one and
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they have to pick the right timing and
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the rate of progression in doing so and
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that's that's that's a really hard
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problem on many dimensions so you might
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call it rejuvenating the corporation
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I think the first success factor is to
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is to really understand that need so the
00:07:07
the analysis in the book shows quite
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clearly that the durability and the
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value of leadership positions is
00:07:13
increasingly tenuous so there really is
00:07:15
a need for large corporations to to look
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ahead at new ways of doing strategy and
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the second one is to is to revile the
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problem down because you can't change
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everything everywhere and we've said
00:07:29
that it boils down to three essential
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capabilities one of them is the
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capability of adaptiveness or
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experimentation the second one is the
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capability of shaping which is not just
00:07:40
participating in environments but
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actually shaping ecosystems and the
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third one is ambidexterity which is
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comfort with diversity comfort with a
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mosaic of approaches rather than a
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single monolithic approach we we
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recently saw the announcement that
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Google was dividing itself into pieces
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under a new holding called
00:08:02
alphabet and this is a great example
00:08:04
actually of structural ambidexterity and
00:08:09
all of this has to be managed not only
00:08:12
as a change in the organization but
00:08:15
change in people's minds - it requires
00:08:16
familiarity with new ways of thinking
00:08:19
that hopefully we we detail in the book
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you
