Cutting Through The Grey

We need a facilitator

In the current volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous business environment, many Boards are requesting facilitation of their strategic thinking.

While there are still a few who believe that a magic process will create a strategy from a Board away day, wise directors are co-designing a programme of activities. Robust strategic thinking processes recognise the need to:

Hear insights from a range of stakeholders

Develop a true understanding of what Warren Buffett calls durable competitive advantage

Generate alternative paths to the future

Make strategic choices based on sufficient board intelligence

Develop Situational Intelligence

 

Good governance relies on scheduling the process effectively to build on the rhythm of the board and the business. This creates dialogue between those with horizon scanning capability and those with a true understanding of operational capability and capacity.

Effective facilitation results from building a common understanding of purpose, process and desired outcomes. With proper scoping and co-design, the board and facilitator build mutual trust and respect and an environment where independent thinking is encouraged, alternatives are properly explored and energy is sustained.

Communicating strategy

Leaders exist in a digital environment in which instant and global connectivity increases all stakeholder expectations.

The format in which strategy is communicated provides an opportunity to tell the organisation story clearly and compellingly.

Leaders can show that they have thought effectively about the future direction of their organisation and have made informed choices.

The best strategic reports are:

Well structured and use simple language and relevant graphics to provide information.

The flow of thinking makes sense with linkages made between relevant sections eg: strategic objectives and performance indicators.

The tone of good strategic reports is open and collaborative.

 

 

ICSA:The Governance Institute awarded

SSE plc - 2015 FTSE 100 award for Best Strategic Report

Drax Group plc - 2015 FTSE 250 Best Strategic Report 

 

Leading Strategic Change

Financial Director Magazine asked about the role of a CFO in leading strategic change, reflecting on the challenges ahead as Google changes their business model to a holding company, Alphabet, and subsidiaries.

Rearranging the Alphabet

Articles to download

The last twelve months of articles are now available to download from this blog.

Recent publications cover:

Creating strategic change agendas

Making strategic decisions

Effective board development

Delivering governance and compliance.

The price of agility

According to thought leader Dr Laurence Lyons:

'The price of agility is under-utilisation.'

Agile - Alert - Nimble - Sprightly, highly desirable characteristics. Being agile is the aspirational goal of most business leaders, but it comes at a cost.  

How do you resource the need to deliver value to your existing customers with the need to be continuously curious and quick to spot opportunities.

'How do you factor in the fat which makes you fit?'

Who keeps the wheels on the car? How do you ensure that the business as usual team don't feel under valued as the development team are commissioned to seek new and novel solutions?

How do you ensure that insights from the people working with your customers reach strategic thinkers and inform their decision making?

How do you create a culture where reflection time is valued, where the time and inclination to innovate are actively encouraged?

And how do you achieve all the above if the message you send is 'do more with less?'

 

 

Developing Organisational Situational Intelligence

Situational Intelligence is required in order to build organisations that are fit for the future and deliver in the present. This framework, developed in partnership with Dr Laurence Lyons, provides a means of checking whether you have covered all bases.

New ways of thinking - BBC World News Channel

We live in a complex business world which is impacted by a number of megatrends. We respond by building agile organisation models which flex to accommodate the shifting landscape. But agile models are not enough. We need to develop agile thinking too. We call this Situational Intelligence™

Interview by Tanya Beckett for Business Edition on the BBC World News Channel

 

 

 

Situational Intelligence™ helps today's business leaders and organisations make sense of complexity.

 

Organisational Agility

For centuries we have been reminded that if we travel down the same path we cannot expect to arrive at a new destination.  Searching for new paths will require business leaders to think in different ways. This new thinking is required at board level in order to make sense of a complex business world which is impacted by a number of economic, social and geo-political megatrends. This new thinking will also enable boards to design and lead agile organisation models which perform effectively in the rapidly changing business environment. This new thinking recognises that the globally, instantly connected world places leaders in the spotlight and their reputations are continuously on the line. We call this new way of thinking ‘Situational Intelligence™’.

 

We acknowledge that it is difficult to accommodate different thinking in those boardrooms where tried and tested approaches predominate and behaviour is conditioned by past successes.  Governance codes warn against the dangers of complacent boards and ‘Groupthink’.

 

There is no universal template for determining the diverse insights required to enable a board to lead its organisation into the future. Every organisation is different. Strategic resourcing uses Situational Intelligence™ to determine the insights which will be needed, how they can best be provided and by whom.

 

By deliberately attracting a diverse pool of candidates and ensuring you have a robust, coherent and transparent appointments process you optimise the chances of bringing the required insights to the boardroom. The Chairman is responsible for ensuring that these insights inform debate and board decision making and that different thinking and voices are not filtered out. Regular board reviews and effective succession planning will ensure that the structure and composition of the board remains relevant through time.

View Articles to Download - Fit for the Future

Sentiment

In difficult trading times we are advised to track both the tangible and intangible aspects of our businesses. In tangible terms, a real understanding of money flows is essential. In intangible terms, we follow sentiment. What is the quality of our relationships along our value chains? Are we delivering value to all our stakeholders? Do they want to travel further with us?

Sentiment is viral. It spreads quickly across boundaries. Sentiment impacts our reputation and bottom line. Sentiment is often driven by interest not logic. Sentiment is not static.

How much time is your business devoting to tracking and analysing the impact of stakeholder sentiment on the formulation and delivery of your strategy?

Who is bringing insights on stakeholder sentiment for debate in the boardroom?

Are the messages being filtered or distorted?

Which image do you see?

 

Strategic Change Insight - Risk isn't always bad

Without risk there is no innovation. Individuals and organisations have different risk appetites which Boards must determine. The Institute of Risk Management (IRM) identifies risk as ‘a positive force for growth and success.’ Events have causes and consequences. The latter could be upside risks - to be exploited or downside risks – to be mitigated.

 

Warren Buffett, perceived as the world’s most successful investor, says “Risk comes from not knowing what you’re doing.” Buffet has a robust approach to taking calculated risks. He advocates investing, not speculating and suggests that diversification is not essential. Since capital is a limited resource, investment targets should provide durable competitive advantage, be run by able management whom you can trust, have a sensible price tag and be understandable businesses (complexity hides potential risk). As an independent thinker, he advises flexibility in applying his approach, debt avoidance and a philanthropic attitude to the profits you make.