September 2009 Deep Insights

Throughout history disruptions occurred that made Strategy execution difficult: an economic turn, epidemic, war, or a revolution. Such an event brought a whole new environment into play. Occasionally leaders were called upon to study the event; to determine the effect on their organization and bring forward a new Strategy. The leaders knew the importance of revising the plan but often ignored the event because they were sheltered from its consequences. Their world was not connected to that world and would not be connected in the near future.

Today disruptions are generated by technology breakthroughs and multinational marketing programs. Both are created by globalization, markets that have no boundaries. Danger arises if we continue to think we remain disconnected from the event because we will continue to do what we have always done. However, new disruptions are seldom based in current strategy. They are most often found in a breakthrough technology or knowledge discovered by cross functional integration of information around the world. Some organizations have made the effort to create an environment where information sharing has priority. They have structured forums for their people to come together and share what may appear to an outsider as insignificant functional information. These forums are the catalyst to transfer knowledge and instill wholeness of purpose to a disrupter’s strategy, their company brand, their new products and employees.

Ideas begin to flow across functions that are created through the forums knowledge exchange. The ideas have earned admiration through dialogue that has built respect between disciplines and people. Past practices would have sent the idea to a dumpster with the prejudice of “what do other disciplines know?” However, the next step in this situation is to have a TEAM, selected by the forum and with all functions being represented, research the idea for its potential ROI. If the answer is “not much” the discovery data is sent back to the forum for more dialogue or discarded and the teams move on. If the answer is positive the TEAM builds a take-to-market plan and then presents its plan to management for approval. When approval is granted the team turns its attention to execution which is already well underway because of the process. The entire organization has and will be a part of this idea’s success not just one function or person.

The new Strategy. Every organization that desires to survive disruption from around the world must have the intelligence to stay in touch with technology breakthrough and must learn to segment their markets, delivering the products that will best serve its demand and delivering ROI above the average.