Simple Rules

What is strategy?

Pervasive change. Where do you want to go? How do you want to get there?  Extreme uncertainty about the future. Blurred timing and paths. It is difficult to plan but reacting is insufficient.

Strategy as structured chaos. Make it simple. Tim is central for longer horizons. Leverage the past. Orgniastion drives strategy. Rhythm, not speed. Improvisational.

Short-term –

Three steps – Figure out what will move the needles, choose a bottleneck, craft the rules. This provides some structure but not so much structure that you can’t move. It is like jazz music, on the edge of chaos. Having a small number of rules works because it lets you capture opportunities flexibly, make better and faster decisions, they are easy to remember and communicate. Strategy = simple rules. Get real time information and adjust.

Mid-term –

Best practice is genetic evolution. Blend the old and the new for faster, cheaper, less riskly innovation. Biology is the science of growth and change.

Long-term –

Probe the future. Use a wide variety of low cost probes. Strategic planning is not a waste of time. It is about experimenting and searching. Pivot from failure to failure. Lose small, cheap, early. It is about your identity not your vision. (Drop box “It just works”). It’s about learning. When there is more uncertainty, use more probes.

 

 

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