• Agile Transformation

What are we actually betting on here?

You notice it in the little things. Meetings that are always about the same thing. Projects that keep getting pushed around. Budgets that are allocated for certain subjects and not for others. If you look closely, you can see what an organization is really focusing on. Strategy documents often don’t tell you that. In this article in our series on corporate culture , we dive into what strategy means in practice.

If I want to know what an organization’s strategy is, I often don’t need to read a strategy document or struggle through piles of PowerPoints. There is another way. You can see strategy in agendas, time commitments, money, recurring topics and what is structurally left over. Those are the strategic emphases, even if no one calls them that.

Strategy or the beaten path

Over the years I have learned: listen less to what organizations say is important and look more at what they actually do. Strategy is rarely in plans. It’s in behavior. (That, by the way, is a bit different from naming the delusion of the day as strategy.)

Often that strategy also makes perfect sense from the culture: grown from what once worked, where there was excitement, where success was achieved. So the real question is not: do we have a strategy? But: what are we actually betting on in practice?

Four ways strategic emphases become visible

Looking along the four culture values of our series (innovate & discover, perform & win, manage & secure, collaborate & connect) reveals four very different ways organizations choose direction.

1. Innovate & discover
Here the focus is on the future. On new possibilities. On exploring what is possible. There is room to experiment and learn. That gives energy and movement. At the same time it also demands something: making choices about what not to do. Because not everything can be renewed at the same time.

Ask yourself: Where are we consciously investing in innovation? And where do we actually linger on good ideas?

2. Performing & winning
Here the focus is on goals, results and impact. Success is made visible. There is focus and pace. That can help tremendously in keeping direction. But it can also make the horizon get shorter and what doesn’t contribute immediately gets less attention.

Ask yourself: Where does this focus help us stay focused? And where does it narrow our focus?

3. Managing & securing
Here the focus is on stability, quality and predictability. What works is fixed. What creates risk is contained. This protects what has been built. At the same time, it can also make change primarily something you have to manage, rather than something that comes into being.

Ask yourself: What do we want to protect? And what does that cost us in terms of agility?

4. Collaborate & connect
Here the focus is on people and teams. On support, involvement and learning together. This strengthens ownership and trust. But without clear choices, it can also become diffuse as to where you are actually moving as an organization.

Ask yourself: Where does this focus help us move forward? And where are we putting off choices?

What our choices really say

Strategic emphases show what we think is important, even if we never express it explicitly. They show, perhaps more importantly, what we structurally give less attention to. Perhaps this is why this is the most honest reflection: what do we consistently focus on, and what do we unintentionally leave out in the process?

In the previous blog we looked at what holds us together, in the next blog we look at the final dimension: when do we actually think we are doing well here? Because how you define success says everything about what you bet on again tomorrow. Would you like to have a casual conversation about that? Please feel free to send me a message.