Strawberries and Champagne
(At least) Two strategy approaches are at the moment very much affecting the business life: sense of urgency vs. Blue Ocean.
THE strategy guru everybody refers to is John Kotter. Especially his 8-Step Change Model has become the mantra of change management. The first step is to create Sense of Urgency.
That’s basically what you usually hear, like just recently when Nokia’s new CEO Elop talked about “burning platform”.
That might be right, and it is so simple and straight-forward: if the house is in fire, you better move! Right?
Well, it might suit some environments sometimes. My question: Why would you wait for the fire to catch your house? (My answer: In order to legitimize “crisis management” and bad leadership.)
The point: If you wait for the burning platform, you’re a damn fool. How about taking care of the things in advance!?
Rather, creating Blue Ocean (Kim & Mauborgne 2005), uncontested markets and relying on continuous improvement is a more sound strategy to me. It also requires a very different leadership approach. How do you motivate people who are having a nice picnic with strawberries and champagne?
Writer’s name: Perttu Salovaara from Innotiimi.
