Back in the late 90’s I worked as managing director in the Nordics for car rental broker Holiday Autos. We used to meet up for a strategy meeting in August, set the objectives and financial goals for next year. I remember them as well thought out events with lots of discussions.
We went home invigorated and set about the financial planning process, after acceptance from the board of directors we set about producing the brochure that would dictate our pricing for the next 7-8 months. Even for a fairly simple little publication like ours it was quite a monumental task which involved predicting currency fluctuations, weighted revenue analysis and other fun things.
Going into the new millenium we sensed that something was fundamentally flawed with the model, we had launched our online presence and we saw our clients referencing the web since it provided you with a much more visual experience, up to date information on car models and full bookability without having to wait sometimes up to 20 minutes on the phone, and, it instantly calculated the total price for the duration (due to space constraints the brochure could only display the price for 7 days).
So, we decided to ditch the brochure, for those of you not familiar with travel & tourism, the printed brochure was and still is in many places as holy a thing as you can get in an industry so it was no small decision. Needless to say we never went back. It increased our pricing agility, it increased our bottom line by 35%, it lowered our currency exposure and made the customer experience better.
So, what has this to do with strategy you ask? Well it’s a small but significant example of the changes in the approach to strategic work we’ve seen in the last 20 years. Back then we had a very linear, chronological approach which worked brilliantly. Then the web happened. New technological advances called for a different way of devising strategies. Hence the real breakthrough for Mintzberg’s Emergent Strategies. Emergent strategy is a set of actions, or behavior, consistent over time, “a realized pattern [that] was not expressly intended” in the original planning of strategy. The term “emergent strategy” implies that an organization is learning what works in practice.
Fast forward to 2014: Today with the advent of social media, semantic web and the whole virtual thunderstorm of changes we see online every day the question arises whether even this model is getting dated. Startups are talking about pivoting the business model every 18 months or so i.e. turning everything they do on the head and changing course 180 degrees! And we are talking about their core business proposition. It would probably be the equivalent to going from running an ice cream stand to starting an airline. 95% of the conversation about you is happening behind your back. No wonder people get confused.
I still believe we need a strategy, don’t get me wrong. We need an idea of what we want to do (vision), what actions to take to achieve it (mission statement) and the who, what, when’s of those actions (tactical planning). Just don’t fall in love with your mission statement or your tactical planning, perhaps not even your vision because every monday you will have to start all over again. So what to do?
Time for some Psychobabble
I believe that in times of uncertainty those most fit for survival are firmly grounded in a logical set of beliefs, understand their own voice and have a realistic idea of who they are. The same applies for companies as well as humans, one of the more significant changes in organisations over the last twenty years have also been how much more similar to a biological organism they’ve become.
So, as a company, understand who you are and your voice, then go about setting broad outlines on your strategic plans, if they work out like a dream, congratulations. But, keep your ears to the ground and be prepared to bail and alter direction at all times when you hear the stampede of change, very few of us have the luxury of being the changers and have to accept that we are mere followers and that when the freight train of change comes it’s better not to stand on the tracks. I’d even like to go as far as inventing a new buzzword: Responsive Strategies, remember where you heard it first.
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