|
Strategic Learning Diagnostic:
(and Seven Major Obstructions to Beware of)
"The art of progress is to preserve order
amid change and to preserve change amid order."
Alfred North Whitehead,
Mathematician and Philosopher
The
problem...
In an environment and marketplace that changes,
as rapidly as most do, we know it is the ability to learn that
differentiates...
Ask yourselves...or ask us...
We run a diagnostic service for our clients that helps you understand
how well you are learning from your strategy.
As you think about how useful or beneficial this could be for
you, call us to discuss
running the strategic learning diagnostic for you.
It provides choices about action and where you might want to
start. It provides a benchmark to show how you have progressed.
As you can imagine, its based upon the strategic
learning diagram, yet with much more detail. It covers:
A) Future thinking
B) External interaction
C) Strategic choice and design
D) Strategic alignment
E) Strategic communication
F) Strategic Performance Management
H) Strategic Learning and Feedback
As you can imagine, its not the only way we work with clients.
Other ways we can help you.
Our service means that...
- You can establish a benchmark of how well you are learning,
strategically, today.
- You develop a clear action plan for improving and developing
your strategic learning
- You will be clear how this will help your strategic planning
and feedback
- You can demonstrate where you have come from and how much you
have improved.
- You can ensure that you move your thinking, processes and maturity
of strategic learning up in consistent steps. Steps that
you are comfortable with taking.
- Identify what might hold you back.
- You have a clear view of how we can help you.
- More importantly, you have a clear view of what responsibilities
you have and how you can help yourself, as well.
As you think about these benefits, feel
free to call us and discuss your particular needs. We
know you are all different.
Do the systems, processes and practices in your organisation
let that happen?
Ironically, the very systems we have in place, such as planning,
budgeting, employee appraisal, act to constrain learning and development.
For instance,
-
Strategic thinking happens
only once a year: Do your strategy and planning
processes suggest that strategic thinking only needs to happens
once a year. Really?
-
Annual budgeting
suggests that once the budget is created it is the one that
is adhered to, despite the strategy being refined with experience.
Is that really what we want?
- Annual appraisals and goal setting
and goal setting can lead to dysfunctional behaviours. As the
goalposts move through the year, there is no mechanism for updating
the targets people have been set. So, the game becomes
achieving those 12 month old targets to maximise their bonuses,
despite those targets no longer being appropriate.
- Operational thinking in management
meetings , perhaps where time is spent assessing
information and diagnosing problems, means that questions such
as, "Is our strategy still working" and "Are
the assumptions we made still valid?" tend to get ignored.
- Spending too long deciding.
Sure, you have to be sure you are doing the right thing, but
spending too long deciding will mean it will be wrong or too
late by the time you do it.
- Fixed plans.
You wouldn't look out of the window in December and use the
weather then to choose what to wear on March 31st, would you.
If you are not sampling what is happening out there, continuously,
then you are operating partially in the dark.
- Missing the signals: Being
too internally focused, and the compexity of changing the plans,
means that you can miss the signals that things are changing
or even have changed.
So, what are you going to do about it?
Help tackling the problem as
a whole
Are you going to take a step towards Strategic
Learning? - First step: Talk to us
|
