Making Sense of Strategy in an Uncertain World by Susan Szpakowski: Featured Article from the Oxford Leadership Academy Journal
Good strategy - one that
copes well with uncertainty - is elegantly simple with clear
parameters, purpose and success criteria.
Susan Szpakowski is a founding member and currently the
executive director of the Authentic Leadership in Action (ALIA)
Institute, which offers leadership programs internationally. The
following was adapted from The Little Book of Practice
for Authentic Leadership in
Action(ALIA Press,
2010).
In Nova Scotia, we
recently elected a new provincial party. Not long afterwards I
heard one of the government's new ministers respond to a question
about his intended policy by saying, "We should begin by following
the adage to 'do no harm'." When the questioner countered that he
expected more from this government - proactive policies and
solutions - the minister referred to some of the community
innovations that were already taking place in the province, which
we had all just been hearing about. He said, "We need to be careful
not to squeeze the life out of what is already there." I thought
this response was refreshingly candid and
courageous.
Increasingly government and other leaders are realising
that many of their best-intentioned plans, strategies, and efforts
haven't produced the desired results. In fact, many have produced
the opposite. Especially in large, complex systems, by the time a
study has been done and a strategy crafted, the whole situation has
changed. Or top-down solutions alienate the people they are
intended to benefit. "Helping agencies," over-controlling bosses,
and imposed restructuring processes breed apathy and resentment
among those who have been "done to," and helpless frustration among
the well-meaning agents of change.
So what does effective strategy look like in a complex,
continually emergent world? How do we engage all the players
involved without becoming paralyzed by endless process? How do we
exercise decisive leadership within the context of the true
collaboration and high levels of engagement needed to manage
complexity? These are critical questions for our time.
Part of the answer lies in our approach to planning. In
highly complex, emergent systems we need to replace linear
strategic planning with three-dimensional design
thinking.
Christopher Alexander coined the term pattern language as
a way of describing good design practices within a field of
expertise. His own field is architecture, but the term has also
been used in other domains, such as computer science and pedagogy.
Alexander inventoried a set of universal patterns, based on
examples from many cultures around the world, both ancient and new.
As a researcher, his radical premise was that we all have an innate
ability to distinguish "what gives life and beauty" as opposed to
what has been created from a more arbitrary or relative intention -
for example, with a primary focus on efficiency, fashion, or the
architect's self-expression.
Alexander maintains that "each pattern describes a problem
which occurs over and over again in our environment, and then
describes the core of the solution to that problem, in such a way
that you can use this solution a million times over, without ever
doing it the same way twice." (A Pattern Language, 1977)
While Alexander remains a controversial figure, his ideas
point towards the kind of fluency that is essential when working in
complex, challenging environments. How do we design organizations,
projects, and change processes that support life - that support and
nourish people and their work over time? What are the patterns and
solutions that can be used "a million times over, without ever
doing it the same way twice?" As the architects of social space, we
ignore these patterns at our peril. Our efforts will fail to ignite
passion, imagination, and commitment. It will be as if we are
pushing our agenda uphill, rather than connecting with the life
force that is already present.
Emergent design is defined by creative paradox - by a
tension between freedom and constraint, chaos and structure. This
is an age-old tension, and potential harmony, that is expressed in
Taoist literature as well as the recent fields of social innovation
and strategy. We could say that these "new" approaches to social
design create "minimum structure" in order to avoid too much
rigidity and harness the innate intelligence, creativity, and
capacity for self-organizing and self-actualizing in people and
groups.
Too much planning, structure, and intervention will stifle
adaptive capacity. Too little structure will leave a system
vulnerable to the entropic forces of habit, conflicting
self-interests, and lack of vision and direction. A good strategic
design is elegant in its simplicity, with well-defined parameters,
clarity of purpose and success criteria.
Such a design also provides a way to discern the needs of
the future by reaching deeply into the evolving patterns of the
present, rather than simply projecting the assumptions and lessons
of the past. The learning and data gathered in the past may be
useful but will also have diminishing relevance in a rapidly
changing environment. Also, these learnings will no longer hold the
fresh energy needed to engage current players in robust forward
movement.
The relatively recent fields of Complexity Science, Theory
U, and Chaordic Design all provide frameworks of "just enough"
structure. When you design a process using one of these frameworks,
you may not know where you will end up, but you do know why you are
embarking on this project, what you hope to achieve, and the
general direction you are headed. Then you set out on a journey and
build the road as you walk it, staying flexible and responsive to
the changing terrain along the way.
Proceeding on such a journey begins by gaining an
understanding of the territory - the dynamics and patterns within a
system. This understanding will be informed by available data and
analysis, but in complex systems it is impossible to map all the
interconnected, changing variables at play. To complement this
analytical understanding, the adaptive leader is also immersed in
the system with other parts of his or her neurological system
(other ways of perceiving and knowing) switched on, so that an
intuitive way of knowing the whole is also activated. The inner
capacity of "knowing the whole" supports the outer practices of
emergent strategy and action. In other words, three-dimensional
design and strategy calls for three-dimensional
leadership.
Contagious momentum
In 2001, Phil Cass, CEO of a long-standing and
much-respected medical association and foundation in Columbus,
Ohio, was on a quest. He wanted to understand how he could engage
his organization and its stakeholders in more meaningful ways and
how he could let go of degrees of control without letting go of
accountability to his board and to the community at
large.
This quest took him to the Authentic Leadership in Action
(ALIA) Institute in Nova Scotia, Canada, which specializes in tools
and practices for emergent strategy and action. In the following
years Phil returned to ALIA each June, with growing numbers of
fellow travelers accompanying him each year.
Gradually Phil's organizational culture was transformed,
as new ways of thinking and organizing seeped into the system. A
2007 doctoral project later studied these changes and reported
"higher-level social learning, unlearning, and development,
resulting in increased service to the community.... The energy and
momentum are contagious as evidenced by community response to open
assemblies for optimal health solutions, attendance at learning
workshops, and the expressed enthusiasm from board members." The
report concluded that the combination of Phil's authentic
leadership, his clarity of purpose, and his ability to design
processes that engaged a broad spectrum of employees while staying
responsive to emerging needs and trends all contributed to these
dramatically positive trends.
Building on this success, Phil began experimenting with
emergent strategies outside the organization. In March 2005, a
group of 36 invited community leaders who spanned sectors and
generations spent three full days learning the art and practice of
"hosting strategic conversations." When the group reconvened in
October, each person told a story of how this new seed had begun to
germinate in their work and life, in some cases dramatically. Many
were now inspired to go forward with further training, and to host
a community gathering. One member, Matt Habash, who at the time was
both President of the Columbus City Council and Executive Director
of the Mid-Ohio Food Bank, applied his new skills to convening a
community dialogue on hunger.
From there the initiative has grown through expanding
circles of engagement and spin-off projects. Over 500 people in
Columbus have attended "strategic conversation" training sessions,
the most recent sessions being led by early graduates. In every
case, those who participate are learning not only the skills of
convening but also how to strengthen their authentic leadership and
how to design emergent change processes in their home
context.
Phil reports that in recent encounters around the city,
conversations often end with, "Oh, by the way, we recently engaged
our community/stakeholders to..." The sentence is completed with
stories ranging from "create a new public policy on pathways and
bikeways" to "identify what career-oriented skills are needed in
our community" to "create a neighborhood health co-op" to "create a
master plan for our city's growth (at a fraction of the cost and
time needed for the previous plan)" to "establish the key
competencies in a university-level nonprofit leadership
curriculum." With a mix of wonder and exasperation, Phil concludes,
"We have no idea how many 'oh, by the way's' are out
there!"
With some detective work, many success stories in Columbus
could be traced back to Phil's leadership and example. At the same
time, many of these linkages may never be seen or publicly
acknowledged. And this is the other side of Phil's story. The most
effective strategy is often the strategy that spreads leadership,
that works in the background to create culture shifts and tipping
points, and that increases the overall intelligence and resilience
of teams, organizations, and communities. To work effectively in
this way, leaders need to know how to let go of degrees of control
without losing coherence and forward movement. They also have to be
willing to share leadership and power, and sometimes to forego
personal recognition. This requires a high level of personal
mastery and integrity, the hallmarks of authentic
leadership.