ASP-Boston

The Necessary Revolution Comes to the ASP's National Conference

2009-01-25T13:46:00.003-05:00

Sustainability Drives Strategy

"Sustainability" is a term that is at risk of becoming as meaningless as "natural foods," which now includes products that are way too sweet and fattening. As our colleague, Kim Novick, points out, many organizations today are turning blue in the face "signaling" how green they are without really changing their fundamental beliefs and actions regarding the relationship of human activity to the natural environment. As a species, we are continuing to treat nature as a waste dump and it's getting sicker and sicker. Since we are completely dependent on the natural environment, we are risking failure and self annihilation. We are in an abusive relationship with this Eden called Earth. We continue to propagate an enormous web of denial about the ecological consequences of our actions. We continue to deplete resources that cannot be replenished. We implicitly assume that some other generation with a new technology is going to take care of our mess. In doing so, we are reinforcing the denial.

It is imperative that we truly alter our relationship to our environment by acting in ways that will make it possible for human and natural systems to thrive into the future. That's a definition of sustainability. We can't interfere with the capacity of living systems to regenerate. Doing so invites disaster. The requiem scenario confronts the possibility that the past will not extend into the future and that humans may not continue to populate the planet.

Renowned systems thinker, Peter Senge, and his organizational colleagues in the Society for Organizational Learning's Sustainability Consortium have stepped up to the challenge of sustainability with energetic pragmatism and are dedicated to doing something about it. In the book, The Necessary Revolution: How Individuals and Organizations Are Working Together to Create a Sustainable World, Senge and his co-authors lay out a compelling case for change -- identifying in very specific and devastating terms the degree to which humanity has compromised its environment throughout the Industrial Age. They also report on many promising initiatives around the world, focusing on the role that large corporations like Alcoa, duPont and Coca Cola are playing in bringing about a new relationship between their complex organizations and the ecological context in which all of us are embedded. They go inside the heartminds and the behavioral repertoires of the men and women who have successfully introduced ecologically-oriented systems change in the corporate world. They feel that the Industrial Age is inevitably giving way to a new age in human history. In our opinion, the book glosses over a number of important issues in order to make its point. For example, the authors praise Costco executives for going to prayer meetings with their suppliers in Central America, but their stores continue to be ecologically insensitive and their employees uninspired, reflected in their unwelcoming attitude toward customers. Such criticisms aside, this is an important book because it clearly identifies the necessity to make sustainability a fundamental organizational strategy.

Art of the Future has been working closely with the Association for Strategic Planning to heighten awareness of the importance of sustainability among an international community of practitioners. ASP is dedicated to advancing the profession and practice of strategic planning. Their Annual Conference on February 22-24, 2009 in San Diego is focused on sustainability as a strategic principle for organizational success. Art of the Future has been integrally involved in the design of this program, which includes multiple break out sessions, deep dive workshops, and presentations from CEO's like Neal Schmale of Sempra Energy and Jeff Dunn of Bolthouse Farms who are immersed in the day-to-day choices that turn sustainability into a reality rather than an abstract concept.

We are particularly pleased about the warm reception that Dr. Lisa Shaffer, executive director of University of California at San Diego's Environment and Sustainability Initiative, has extended to conference attendees as a Learning Journey to their campus. Lisa will lead a three hour tour of UCSD's broad range of sustainability initiatives. The University's Vice-Chancellor for Planning, Gary Matthews, will be joining us to discuss why the University has made such large investments in sustainability initiatives.

We invite everyone to join us in participating in this important conference. If you think this might be of interest, click here for more information and registration.

Dave Lash on "Recessioneering"

2008-12-12T10:17:00.004-05:00

Dave pointed out that the American and world economies remain in a very fragile state and the boundaries of the current recession have not yet been identified. "This is the end of the post-WWII economy. We are in a situation that is similar to that of a smoker who has finally had a heart attack: we are paying attention. We're in for a long, slow recovery. The good news is that the smaller you are, the better you are positioned to make the pivot to a successful strategy."

Dave laid out five recession strategies, differentiated by margins desired and organizational focus

Retrench, if you're a high margin firm that is used to being professionally managed
Prepare for hypercompetition, if you've got low margins and a managerial approach to your market
Merge, if you're an entrepreneur in a low margin marketplace
Pivot, if you're entrepreneurial and offer a value proposition that yields high margins
Liquidate, if none of the other options are viable

Drawing on the concept of looking for "pattern language," Dave cited some fascinating research shows about successful versus unsuccessful entrepreneurial action, demonstrating how much the amoeba can show us all about surviving and thriving:

Upstreaming, i.e., swimming toward turbulence, and all of the new opportunities, trends and technologies contained in it
Having a sensitive skin or membrane, i.e., exerting entrepreneurial authority and testing out new ideas, approaches and services at the margins of your efforts
Leveraging, i.e., maximizing the strategic advantages of your particular DNA , execute new ideas with adaptive enterprising, and burnishing your operational effectiveness.

A fuller development of these ideas can be found on one of Dave's websites, The Enterprise Project as a source of some of his thinking.
Dave Lash is founder of Dave Lash & Company, located in Hamilton, Massachusetts. For the past decade, he has been part of a national research-based initiative to identify and disseminate patterns of entrepreneurial success to entrepreneurs and business leaders throughout the country. In this capacity, Dave has worked with some of the country's leading entrepreneurs, researchers, and educators. In 2006, Dave co-authored a research study of entrepreneurship and innovation for the United Kingdom's HM Treasury.

Sustainability by Design

2008-12-03T14:27:00.007-05:00

John Ehrenfeld, Executive Director of the International Society for Industrial Ecology, gave us some key points from his new book, Sustainability by Design, published by Yale University Press and led a lively discussion on sustainability from an organizational perspective. John describes himself as a technologist turned sociologist. Until eight years ago, John was the Director of the Technology, Business and Environment Program at MIT. John believe that the concept of sustainability has to go far beyond remedying existing harm. This view lacks a vision of the future. We need a clear vision of a sustainable world; a systems perspective. Unsustainability is an unintended consequence of our modern culture. We've just seen the collapse of an unsustainable system (in the financial markets). John defines sustainability as "the possibility that human and other life will exist on this planet forever." A sense of possibility is missing in much of our activities.
The word "flourishing" come from "flower." A flourishing environment is constantly emerging; not fixed or measurable. It can be attained and sustained but not managed. Complex systems are beyond comprehension. So, how do we get there? Our current view of reality, based on scientific "enlightenment," is that we are external to our environment; we are outside of and separate from nature. We don't see nature as something that we need to care about. Science and technology are seen as perfecting nature for humans; therefor, we neglect nature. We need to recover responsibility for the world we live in. Technology has the effect of separating us from our environment (example: commodified, packaged, frozen meals separate us from the communal, loving act of cooking). See John's book for more details.

A Strategy for Designing and Nurturing Creativity

2008-11-09T16:47:00.002-05:00

The Boston Chapter of the Association for Strategic Planning delights in bringing distinguished thinkers and speakers to our monthly networking coffees in Burlington, and our meeting on October 7th with author, professor, consultant and--best of all--wit Dr. Barton Kunstler was a standout example of the talent we bring to our audience.

Barton's book, The Hothouse Effect, surveys and integrates creativity in history and modern organizations, including such high performing historical contexts as Florence during the Renaissance, the US Jazz Community, artists and painters in Paris, politics and the arts in Athens, and the early 20th century physicists in Europe. "Why them? What made them so incredibly creative? Is it an accident of birth?"

Barton discussed the five distinguishing characteristics of each of these "scenes" and then applied them to specific currently active organizations, such as LoopDesigns in Bologna Italy or Sequent Computing in the US (sold to IBM in 1999):

"1. High level of creativity for a significant amount of time, e.g., 200 years in Athens

"2. Drawing on a broad cultural zone that a particular community distills and brings to a higher level. It is as if the system talks to itself. If we really want to tap the potential of what is going on here, we’ve got to pick one focus and siphon all of our energy into it. Odds on Athens becoming that community were like 100:1.

"3. Having a disproportionate number of genius and brilliants. That raises the bar of general population is raised as well. More involved in the general activity. Think of Florence in the Medici era. Leonardo and Machiavelli were good friends. No other place has those type of names associated with it. In our society we’re still stuck with pointing toward a single brilliant person. Society creates its own geniuses and brilliants. Athens came up with the perfect type of guy to face the threat of the day.

"4. Create a whole new way of thinking, new disciplines entirely. New standards, procedures, principles.

"5. Everyone, all of the contemporaries of these great creative contexts knew of what was going on. The Greeks looked at the Athenians and said, “These are a new type of people.” They’re weird. They become a reference frame for later generations. The 60s were like that. I’m happier now than I was in 1968, but that’s not the point. Something amazing was happening in the collective mind.

"We live in disintegrative times; creativity is integrative and counter-entropic. How do we think as a collective on a level that will meet these challenges that we have? Listen to highly charged quality of creativity and analytical thought. That’s what the hothouse groups have. It's amazing how much bureaucracy screws up. This anchors us in something else. It's like the difference between the metaphor of a mountain where someone is supposed to be sitting on top knowing what is going on versus a volcano where the energy is spilling up, out and all over the place."

ASP Boston is bringing some great energy, thought and experience to those tables at Panera in Burlington. Join us!

Ken Sawka, Competitive Intelligence Guru

2008-09-27T19:30:00.005-04:00

Ken Sawka, managing partner of Outward Insights, led a stimulating conversation on the relationship between the disciplines of Competitive Intelligence and Strategic Planning at our last coffee.

Ken is a nationally recognized competitive intelligence, early warning system, strategy development expert. He has had a long and acclaimed career as both and intelligence practitioner and consultant, having developed competitive intelligence programs with numerous Fortune 500 corporations. He is a regular contributor to the Kiplinger.com Business Resource Center, and he has appeared on CNBC's Squawk Box.

Ken's talk concentrated on the importance of "structural signposts" as the point of connection between strategy and competitive intelligence:

"Speculative analysis has a relationship to signposts. Signposts are indicative of future conditions that have impacts. They come from Indications and Warnings, which is a way of thinking that was originally invented by the military. Competitive intelligence professionals work with strategists to compare information to indicators. When there's a match, action networks should be activated immediately. When linked to signposts and warnings, future events that occur are not only significant by themselves, but they are pointing to a high level set of events that will affect our whole strategy and, therefore, need our attention.

"This shifts the conversation to 'Okay, we knew this was likely to happen, and we know what the course of action is that we should take.' We can't predict the future, but we can speculate on the evolution of activity that will be significant to our strategy.

"Seeing events from this perspective leads the strategy professional to understand that the CI function 'isn't here to serve me once a year before going to my board meeting, but, rather, it's here to give me input on when something important that I should be watching for is occurring."

Relationships are Critical to the Success of Strategy

2008-09-26T17:16:00.009-04:00

We were delighted to have Monitor Group partner and top selling author, Diana Smith, speak at our Fall Seminar, co-sponsored with the Palladium Group at the new InterContinental Hotel in Boston. Diana spoke on an important, and all too familiar topic, "When Good Strategies Go Bad Strategically Critical Relationship are Usually at Fault."

Using engaging slides, examples and an engaging style that frequently tickles, Diana reminded us all how easy it is to slip into the "either/or" thinking that is so polarizing when dealing with hot topics like:disputed data

insufficient data
uncertainty
conflicting values

Once locked in that spiral of "either I'm right or you're wrong," it is very difficult for the parties to a strategic disagreement to emerge with anything that looks like a sincere "yes" that moves an organization ahead toward a strategic direction. Instead, we are all vulnerable to the prospect of falling into the "he-said/she-said" playing field that focuses on character and motives.

Breaking free of toxicity in relationships requires an ability to see into the "anatomy of relationships" that can be discovered by using the data of conversations to find the patterns of interaction that people create and continuously reinforce:

"By becoming 'behavioral geneticists' we can get at the underlying structure of relationships which are rarely seen...[seeing the DNA of a relationship allows us to understand] how relationships amplify certain proclivities and modify others."

In other words, once a pattern of a relational system is in place, the people in it are good at seeing, thinking and acting in certain ways and lousy at others. If we're regularly in relationships where there is little inquiry and lots of blaming, we're likely to get very good at defending ourselves and lousy at learning from others. Not great chemistry for strategic insight.

The anatomy of a relationship can be discovered by experimenting with the "frames" that we use to understand one another. A frame is a stable interpretation of the meaning of someone else's behavior. Leaders using Diana's approach learn how to suspend their disbelief about someone they think they know when they "reframe" what has always looked like anger into vulnerability and anxiety.

A full exposition of Diana's thinking can be found in her excellent new book, Divide or Conquer: How Great Teams Turn Conflict into Strength.

The Strategic Connection between Transportation, Public Policy, Land-Use, Energy, and the Environment

2008-08-25T18:18:00.005-04:00

Transportation policy expert, Dr. Karla Karash Senior Vice President at TranSystems, provided a terrific set of practitioner insights into the intersection of transit policy and organizational strategy at her ASP Networking Coffee talk last month. Referring to her current work and research in places such as Cleveland, Rio, Harford, Portland OR, Atlanta, Zurich, New York City, Chicago, Cairo, Boston etc., Karla emphasized the importance of a holistic approach to transportation in cities that integrates structural forces such as crime rates, designing urban parks that bring people close to nature, insuring water supplies by reducing run off created by asphalt, and reusing gray water on community gardens. As described in seminal and inspiring works such as Sustainability of Cities: Overcoming Automobile Dependence understanding how these various ingredients are related systemically will lead to the comprehensive, planful accumulation of resources needed for success in the future.

"Good transit helps cities be more environmentally sustainable. Transportation is providing 30% of our greenhouse gases; we have to change this to win the fight against global warming. However, our mental models about cities create the context for our transportation policies. Are cities a good or bad place to be? Many Americans have a rural ideal. Being in densely populated areas isn't part of the American dream. This way of thinking doesn't characterize the Asian world. You can see that in the statistics: Tokyo has captured 50% of the folks taking public transit to work versus NYC where it was only 27% in 1999. But, in 1992 the Rio Earth Summit concluded that cities may be environmentally positive places to be, and that point of view may well affect American thinking over time.

"Natural Step is a whole movement to get businesses to think about what they are using in terms of resources and how to reduce waste. Cities are more sustainable than less compact areas. Cities are important to sustainability. The denser the better. Denser are better and cities with better transit are better overall, in terms of energy use.

"Public transportation facilitates density, yet it is in very difficult position: ridership is going up but they are losing money on each passenger. Deficits are increasing. Agencies are having to cut services at the same time when more mass transit is needed. Since public transportation hasn't been approached with a long term perspective, they are going to be in a panic.

"The stars are some of the European cities and New York and Chicago here in the US. The highest quality transit is electrically powered, because they can allow more livable cities around them. Zurich's system is particularly conducive to living and walking. Commuter rail isn't as attractive to have around you as the trolley. In N. America we have a cities that are bus systems, but they get stuck in traffic and are no better than having cars. Those cities with better rail and denser have a higher percentage of people taking the tram to work. They also have lower subsidies.

"Which comes first: Putting the transit there, will they come? You need good land use to make transportation work, but you also need good transit to get the land use policies. In the communities that have been successful in bringing in new transportation solutions, businesses and major civic institutions have been very influential. Corporations based in Dallas and community businesses based in Dallas promote the creation and expansion of that city's light rail system. In Salt Lake City, the LDS church got very involved.

"There is huge demand now for goods to be run on freight, but the freight yards have all been developed. Harvard has bought all the land that is currently the big freight yard near the Alston toll booths. We could lose that valuable resource close to the cities. We need efficient ways to move goods. These transportation and distribution costs are important strategic factors.

"The only transit that can be successful is that which cares for people who are transportation dependent and it has people who have resources. Atlanta succeeded by having both of those populations. To have even a basic level, you've got to have both. Transit agencies aren't active politically. They don't have a seat at the table. Organizations with a strategic perspective on transportation issues would help them get one."

Valuing the Intangible

2008-07-29T10:00:00.006-04:00

Mary Adams, CMC, principal at Trek Consulting spoke on the Intangible Knowledge Economy at our July networking coffee. Having spent many years in the banking business engaged in high risk lending, Mary realized that, in most cases, the intangible assets of firms are being incorrectly analyzed, if they are understood at all: “The material inputs to the economy have been going down, but intangibles, i.e., something of value that cannot be physically touched, such as a brand, franchise, trademark, or patent, have been exploding” accounting for something like 80% of corporate value. There is a strong relationship between intangibles and reputation: “Reputation is the new bottom line. Your ability to move forward is determined by your reputation.”

Reputation rests on three types of intangibles:

Human capital, including the competencies and knowledge of the workforce
Structural capital, such as the knowledge that has been captured and is being used by an organization and its distinctive processes
Relationship capital, such as the quality of its networks, its ties to major vendors, the degree to which customers are identified with it, and the status of its links with a whole range of external stakeholders.

None of these intangible ingredients are captured on most balance sheets, yet they make an enormous contribution to organizational viability and future prospects. Therefore, the value of any investment or decision should be considered from the perspective of the contribution it will make across all three of these intangible domains.

A full range of Mary’s views on the value of intangible assets, how to assess them and their meaning for a broad range of issues (e.g., the future of the CFO) can be found at the Intellectual Capital Knowledge Center’s blog.

Spend a Day in the Life of Your Customers

2008-06-24T16:34:00.010-04:00

At the June ASP networking breakfast, Jennifer von Briesen of Frontier Strategy shared her experience and her thinking on her work with clients like du Pont on becoming more externally focused by “spending a day with your customer.” Adapted from an approach developed by Francis Gouillart and Frederick Sturdivant, her method involves working with key customers at each link of a product value chain. The process begins by bringing internal stakeholders, such as members of the sales team, together in a workshop situation to identify organizational issues and opportunities. This points the researcher in the direction of which customers to talk to and what, in somewhat general terms, to talk about with them about.

As many as twenty-five extended interviews might be done with customers in their own work environment in the course of one analysis. Typically, each interview yields a 10 page report that places the customer’s input into a larger context. Videotapes are also used to capture customer body language when reflecting on different elements of product or service usage. Where possible, Jennifer engages in these conversations with a client’s existing customers, in part because it builds a stronger company/customer partnership.

Jennifer illustrated the approach with an example from the agricultural sector, where she was looking for new growth opportunities. She spent time on corn, rice, and hog farms interviewing their managers, including some her were lost customers. In this instance, she discovered that her client company’s chemicals were not easily coming out of the devices into which they were placed. The customers were having to put a number of chemicals together in large water vats in order for them to be used. This led to the creation of a new valve being placed on the company’s chemicals, which took the farmers’ system of usage more fully into account.
In another instance, Jennifer described her work with a paint manufacturer that produces products used by car body shops. She interviewed players along the value chain from insurance company representatives to people who had accidents to body shop owners. One body shop reminded her of a beauty salon, with plants and comfortable chairs. The owner told her that more than 60% of the people who dropped off the cars were women who were in a traumatized and stressed out condition as a result of the damage sustained by their vehicles. The owner wanted to do things to communicate their empathy for their customers. Jennifer’s observation of this attention to the details of a relationship led her client to offer a whole new dimension to the service context it provided to the body shops that bought their pain. The improvements they made in the information and perspective held by their sales organization and their products were part of a larger strategic context.

Strategic Philanthropy: Creating Impact with Intention

2008-05-27T11:05:00.016-04:00

Stuart Danforth, who spoke at the Association's quarterly event on May 21st, is certainly a creative strategist intent on making a difference. Stuart is a 3d generation owner of a family business
dating back to the 1930s that specializes in financial planning and investment advice. A strategist, trained psychologist and a social
scientist, Stuart's interest in how organizations behave in their
communities focuses, in particular, on the value that businesses can find in strategic philanthropy. He is also committed to maintaining a spirit of vitality and innovation at his company.

Stuart defines strategic philanthropy as “charitable giving with a deliberate targeted objective.” Elaborating on ideas that he has presented and written about in a number of venues, Danforth used his own firm as an example to set forth a five step model for integrating a philanthropic orientation seamlessly into the very fabric of the enterprise:

Create a program mission: “It doesn’t really matter what the parameters are. I chose community arts, education, and ethics because these are important to me. The mission has to come from the Top. I want to build the creative economy in Boston’s Metro West. It’s definitely good for business. The philanthropic mission sets creativity in motion throughout the firm.”
Identify resources—financial, time, and skill. Stuart’s program emphasizes the personal linkage between internal champions and the recipients of the philanthropic effort, whether that be financial or technical or some combination of the two. Demonstrating what may be an unusually strong commitment to his principles, Danforth Associates funds its philanthropic activities regardless of the firm’s income achievement. It is the sort of value-in-action that attracts talented people to the firm.
Establish a committee to make philanthropic decisions. “This is a culture builder and a lot of fun. It states what you as an organization and you as a person are about.” Thirteen of the eighteen grants given by Danforth Associates were vetted by the members of this committee.
Dynamic execution. Stuart advised the recipients of corporate philanthropy, a number of whom were in attendance at the event, to invite corporations into your organization as partners, make them part of the plan.
Learn, review, and revise.

While strategic philanthropy is certainly “about the money,” Danforth was adamant in asserting that it absolutely wasn’t only about the money: “It’s about sharing knowledge and expertise. What knowledge and skills do we have and how do we bring them to our community partners?…Strategic philanthropy presents small and mid-sized firms have a unique opportunity at this point in time. It is my view that many large corporations are abandoning philanthropy, creating a vacuum that smaller firms can occupy.”

As a specific example, Stuart described his intimate involvement in a major art show by George Nick, a notable Massachusetts’s-based artist, which took place at the Danforth Museum in Framingham, the sort of creative economy institution that Stuart is so supportive of [NB: Several hundred years ago, a Danforth provided the land that became Framingham. Stuart Danforth did not found the museum.]. The show was a success for all concerned, and not the least for Danforth Associates, which held a number of events in conjunction with the event. “It was an off-campus office….Through strategic philanthropy, we are known as being involved in the community, and we are increasingly connected to the creative class.”

We also want to note that the ASP was delighted to receive an invitation to hold this meeting at Boston College under the auspices of the College’s Center for Corporate Citizenship. The Center promotes a full range of educational and advisory services to corporations world-wide who are serious about community involvement and corporate responsibility, including courses and publications in the field of strategic philanthropy.

Strategic Purpose, Marketing and Beyond Green

2008-05-27T10:22:00.005-04:00

Kim Novick of Creative Brand and Experience Design presented a provocative set of ideas and recommendations in his presentation on “Strategic Purpose, Marketing and Beyond Green” at our monthly breakfast networking meeting. Kim has had a broad ranging career, including studies with Lee Strasberg and Elia Kazan at The Actors Studio (Psst! He’s actually only one degree of separation from Kevin Bacon!), work on numerous award-winning projects with the Second Stage, and with Lyn Austin’s Music Theater Group. Major tours include the National Black Touring Circuit, and Jennifer Mueller and the Works.

In the late 80’s Kim began producing “industrials” and large-scale events. Touchstone projects include half-time shows for the NBA, Coca-Cola’s Centennial Celebration, and Major League Baseball’s first FanFest. He moved to the Boston area in 1992 to work for Jack Morton Productions, and in ‘95 founded Intermedia Services, a full-service production company. Other engagements include a Senior Consulting post to IBM on worldwide event strategies, membership of the seminal team at BzzAgent, a start-up Word-of Mouth marketing agency and brand strategy work for Captains of Industry.

During this decade, Kim’s attention and intention has turned toward the strategic importance of thinking and acting green. There is a powerful difference between leadership that “signals” green (e.g., by driving a Prius or personal recycling) and that which has green embedded in its “DNA.” Novick raised the intriguing prospect that multinational corporations like GE with its ecomagination campaign will sign on to their own version of a Kyoto accord, and he asserted that it was through the lasting impact of the Sullivan Principles that Siemens decided to abandon its interests in Sudan.

An attendee, Jeanne LaFrance of the competitive intelligence firm, Fuld & Company, spoke of the connections between Kim’s perspective and that developed by R. Buckminster Fuller and his school via the World Game, which poses modeling how to achieve peace as an alternative to war gaming.

Ultimately, Novick’s talk posed some profound questions to strategists of all stripes: What is it really going to mean to the branding of companies, products and lifestyles to live in a greener and greener world? Is there really any choice but to embrace the tension wrapped up in this question? If the day of the Cultural Creative (i.e., the minority of something like 500,000,000 of the world’s residents) as world leaders is actually at hand are you ready for it?

For more on the connections between art, design and business, click here.

Strategic Marketing: you can measure results and they're not pretty

2008-05-12T15:12:00.014-04:00

Top selling marketing guru Kevin Clancy's appearance before an enthusiastic group of ASP members joined by colleagues from the Society for Competitive Intelligence Professionals (SCIP) was a highlight of the last four weeks. Assisted by the generous provision of a meeting space by Microsoft Northeast District offices in Waltham, MA, the gathering gave attendees a very up close and personal opportunity to learn about Clancy's experience and insight into how marketing supports "organic growth" through brand recognition and loyalty.

Not only did Clancy's one hour talk provide many insights as he moved through his argument that - in spite of how it feels -"Your Gut is Still Not Smarter Than Your Head!" but he also gave away copies of this breezy and substantive book with that title to everyone in attendance!
Clancy argues that Marketing's contribution to the bottom line is usually negative because the approach is overly intuitive. Using a portfolio of examples from his practice and his industry, Clancy believes that a real strategy emphasizes:

targeting profitable, responsive market segments
positioning products and services in a way that demonstrates an ability to solve problems experienced by those segments
implementing good plans with an exceptional skill

Innovation in Leadership

2007-12-31T12:39:00.001-05:00

Everyday, the Wall Street Journal emails me a "Morning Brief." This year's close out column by Joseph Schuman highlighted the futility of making specific predictions, reminding readers that the concerns that seemed so pressing and immediate exactly a year ago did not prove to be as important as one might have thought:

"Economists were predicting modest economic fallout from a housing slump, a stock-option-backdating scandal at Apple fed qualms about the future of Steve Jobs, and doubt was being cast on the make-or-break troop surge planned for Iraq -- which was also the undisputed key issue for the 2008 presidential race.

"Optimism, pessimism or both were off the mark for those three scenarios....It wasn't the downturn in the building and buying of homes that slammed global finance this year so much as a domino effect from defaulting risky mortgages intricately woven into investment portfolios around the world. The surge in Iraq now seems responsible for a lower level of violence in Baghdad and elsewhere -- allowing the war to fade on the campaign trail -- but it hasn't produced the political progress that was its ultimate goal....As for Mr. Jobs, well, the iPhone is Apple's latest hit, the company's stock is at record highs and his legal jeopardy on the options scandal seems a thing of the past."

Schuman then goes on to argue that innovation (or its absence) is the common denominator of all of these stories:

"With Apple, the company's blockbuster engineering and marketing reputations are based on out-innovating its technology and media rivals. With the credit crunch, the clever banking folks ... didn't foresee the wave of collapsing values that would return to swamp their institutions. And with Iraq, military strategists may have found local solutions for local versions of insurgency, but a countrywide design for the kind of Iraq envisioned by President Bush has yet to appear.
Even the most pressing global issue this past week -- a Pakistan further destabilized by the Bhutto assassination -- is at heart a problem gone unsolved by the U.S. for years: How do you get out of supporting a strongman whose nuclear-armed state and frontline status in the terror wars?"

The Brief cites surveys, as reported in Business Week, by major consulting firms emphasizing that "the art of creative problem solving and finding new dynamics to replace the old" is key to the true success of any organization or society. The surveys "reflect a broad belief that most companies don't have the leadership, systems, or tools to successfully and consistently innovate.

The underlying Business Week article emphasizes the importance of listening to the "voice of the customer" and enforcing a rigorous stage gating process to successful innovation, and certainly many of us in the strategic planning professions have been introduced to these approaches. (I have found the International Association for Product Development, which has been taking a multidimensional look into the innovation process, including such tools as VOC, for many years to be a particularly excellent repository of information and insight.)

But, the Brief closes with a warning and a call to action by business leaders that I believe has a special urgency as 2007 concludes. Cited in the January/February issue of Foreign Affairs, Klaus Schwab, founder and chairman of the World Economic Forum exhorts the private sector to realize that:

"The limits of political power are increasingly evident. The lack of global leadership is glaring, not least because the existing global governance institutions are hampered by archaic conventions and procedures devised, in some instances, at the end of World War II. Sovereign power still rests with national governments, but authentic and effective global leadership has yet to emerge. Meanwhile, public governance at the local, national, regional, and international levels has weakened. Even the best leaders cannot operate successfully in a failed system. As state power has shrunk, the sphere of influence of business has widened," with companies becoming "integral to the survival of governments and the political stability of nations and regions.

"International business leaders must fully commit to sustainable development and address paramount global challenges, including climate change, the provision of public health care, energy conservation, and the management of resources, particularly water. Because these global issues increasingly impact business, not to engage with them can hurt the bottom line."

To me Schwab's words constitute a challenge to expand my own definition of private sector strategic planning to encompass innovations that yield a new kind of leadership mind, i.e., one that habitually and easily sees self-in-system and makes choices that are beneficial to both. And, in 2008, I resolve to do just that.

The Inevitability of the Highly Improbable: Dangerous Ideas

2007-12-25T17:28:00.000-05:00

Nassim Nicholas Taleb is the noted and highly entertaining author of a number of works on randomness, most famously The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable, which I would have titled The Inevitability of the Highly Improbable.

The idea is dangerous because it challenges us to have a radically different mind. The common mind cannot see the obvious: the prevalence of seemingly or actual random phenomena that demonstrate that we frequently don't know what in the hell is going on, especially in matters that really count.

Take the "subprime mortgage crisis" through which interest-only housing loans to Americans with shaky credit ratings are roiling economic conditions throughout the world, and, simultaneously, strengthening the position of the Arab and Singaporian banking institutions that have been bailing out American banks. While in hindsight it is easy to see that the potential for a "big problem" was always present in these credit markets, I would wager that, for most of us, this debacle seemed to "come out of no where!" But not if you think the way Taleb is urging us to do. In his world, calamity and fortune are twins always aborning.

Taleb relishes his attacks on the conventional wisdom that assumes tomorrow will be like today. We look at reality through the "triplet of opacity:"

"The illusion of understanding, or how everyone thinks he knows what is going on in a world that is more complicated (or random) than they realize;
"The retrospective distortion, or how we can assess matters only after the fact, as if they were in a rearview mirror; and
"The overvaluation of factual information and the handicap of authoritative and learned people."

Abetted by the discipline of statistics (and its particular emphasis on averages and the bell curve), these factors combine to make it impossible for us to see what is directly in front of our eyes, i.e., that there is much, much greater uncertainty in life at all levels -- individual, group, organizational and societal -- than we want there to be. In fact, it is exactly the desire for "normality" that shapes the mind into an instrument of misunderstanding rather than insight.

Taleb's argument has tremendous implications for strategic planning. For one thing, it blows forecasting completely out the window. Forecasting assumes linearity, a kind of "x has always been followed by y" thinking," in an era when such reality is constantly being proven wrong. The ratio of mullahs who believe that the Koran promotes tolerance to those who encourage martyrdom is likely to be a lot more important statistic for the future than month-to-month comparisons of spending on Halo, a new combat action release from Microsoft for Xbox, albeit one that is a lot harder to calculate. (On the other hand, if martyrs are developing new ambitions by playing Halo, I take it back.)

If the calamitous and the miraculous are truly common place, the mind of the strategic planner must stretch to encompass revealed truth. We must begin with the presumption of randomness, the presumption that the unlikely is likely and see what that leads us to anticipate.

I believe that the presumption of chaos takes us toward a new type of mind, a state of being that embraces what is rather than what we thought would be/should be. What is the nature of a mind that does not know certainty; that does not even believe that certainty exists? It's fuzzy. It's emergent. It's something like what happenned when Jimi Hendrix's guitar and amplifier lined up in a particular configuration to generate feedback he didn't know how to calculate precisely but trusted.

Looking backward and forward: a year of ideas

2007-12-19T12:48:00.000-05:00

How to find powerful strategic ideas?

I am an inveterate scanner. If I could clone myself, I'd have at least one or two additional selves surfing the web, attending intriguing presentation, and meeting thoughtful people full time. I thrive on stimulating new possibilities.

Of course, there are never enough hours in to
devote to this sort of free ranging; so, I am grateful for compilations of great ideas such as those put together by Popular Science or Mass High Tech or J. de Francisco's highly innovative and informative blog, consultaglobal.

The New York Times has recently published its 7th Annual "Year in Ideas," which offers material from the sublime to the ridiculous for strategic thinkers to consider. I loooove this article that appeared as the cover story of the NYT Magazine earlier this month. Here are their picks for the best ideas of 2007. I can't help but anticipating that these ideas, taken as a whole, are going to have significant impacts in the years ahead.

A Survey of Strategic Planning

2007-12-19T11:31:00.000-05:00

An authoritative professional journal for our discipline, Strategy & Leadership [www.StrategyandLeadership.com] started life as Planning Review, a publication of The Planning Forum, The International Society for Strategic Management and Planning. When The Planning Forum morphed into the Strategic Leadership Forum, the journal was redubbed Strategy & Leadership. It is now published by Emerald Group Publishing in the UK [www.emeraldsight.com]. On a recent visit to their site, I came across an article that I found to be a great reference for our profession Strategic thinking: the ten big ideas, Robert J. Allio, Strategy & Leadership , Vol 34 Issue 4, pp. 4-13, ISSN 1087-8572.

In this article, Alio evaluates many of the strategic management methodologies that have been used in the past several decades (the basic tools for managers). He has chosen to include:

Long-range planning
Strategic analysis
Quality
Portfolio theory
Scenario planning
Resource allocation models
Leadership craft
Metrics that matter
Strategic alliance

At first glance this seems to be a strange amalgamation. The list goes from the generic (long-range planning and strategic analysis) to more targeted methods (quality, portfolio theory and scenario planning) to pieces of the process (resource allocation to strategic alliance). Nonetheless, it is well researched and based on Alio's 40 years of consulting experience with large organizations. It is definitely worth a look - to gain an overview of the field for the novice and a trip down memory lane for the seasoned planning professional.

The part that caught my attention was the section on Scenario planning and I was glad to see it on the list. Since my first introduction to scenarios as a Corporate Planner in the world's second largest technology organization nearly 20 years ago, I was and continue to be hooked on the process. Alio includes a brief, precise history of the process and, most strikingly to me, claims that "Some form of scenario planning is now a staple of every contemporary strategy formulation process." Would that it be so. The first time I had an inkling that scenarios were at all ingrained in thought leaders' mental lexicons was at the World Futures Societies annual conference in Toronto in 2005. In nearly every session I attended, the speaker referred to scenarios, assuming that the listeners were as familiar with the process as they were with breathing.

So as a starting point for this blog, take a look at this article. It's a good source for establishing a basis for dialogue and exploration into new methods and new applications of old methods. If the link to the article is not working for you, send me an email and I'll forward you a copy.

Welcome to the ASP Boston Chapter Blog

2007-12-12T08:34:00.000-05:00

The Association for Strategic Planning (ASP) is a national organization for strategic planning professionals with over 600 members. Members have access to rich learning resources including journals and white papers. A conference is held annually in Santa Monica. The roots of this organization extend to several predecessors including the Planning Forum and the Strategic Leadership Forum.

The Boston Chapter is one of many throughout the country. We are building strength by extending networking and learning opportunities provided in the Greater Boston area to anyone involved with strategic planning, including practitioners, consultants and thought leaders. For 2008, we are planning monthly morning gatherings to provide an opportunity to meet and learn from each other. There will also be evening programs with guest speakers. This blog is an important step in gathering the community and sharing information. We'd love to hear from you.