Day 12: When the mountain comes to you

How many times do you have to walk a specific way for it to become a path? Through repetition our feet find the comfortable certainty that we won’t get lost, won’t stumble on unexpected stones and see exactly what everyone has seen before us.

It seems to be so deeply imbedded in our culture that we don’t even challenge the corporate planning grooves we are in. The repeated mantras and regurgitated sales figures that equate rear view mirror driving. These corporate social habits are aimed more at building approval and consensus than elaborating on the options in a landscape filled with black swans.

If the process of strategy creation is to be successful it needs to transcend documents and become a dance of socialization. The strategy gets repeated again and again through countless meetings at countless levels of the company. And why? Because through repetition we hope that it will become the truth. Even though we know that the future is unknowable, we still hold onto the idea that we can capture and project the future in our PowerPoints.

The magical tool that makes us believe it will be so, is the response and recognition we get from our peers and superiors in the firm. A nod, a smile, a wink. And so, like the mountain paths, our strategies become well worn synapse free flows towards destiny. How many companies have gone back to validate their planning process against results? Very few. How many use this insight to improve the merry little dance? Fewer still! The fact is that most people will hold onto the bias that if we all feel good about the numbers they are OK to proceed against. The same way we felt good about the numbers last year, and the year before.

So as the ground on which these paths are etched shifts over time, the same strategy that has become folklore in the firm can sign the death march of the lemmings. Can strategy really be reduced to the simplest way to get to point B from point OK? How do we avoid ossification of corporate curiosity to ensure that strategy becomes more spontaneous and fluid? More like surfing, less like military marches. Using the seismic shifts as waves of inspiration to cut a new course.