Solving the Strategy Delusion (eBook)

Marc Stigter is an international strategist who works with organisations on unlocking deep insights and realising distinctive strategies. His own insights have been gained as a global practitioner at executive level, as a research academic at doctoral level, and as a strategy advisor at organisational level. Marc is an Honorary Senior Fellow at the University of Melbourne's Graduate School of Business and Economics, and an Associate Director at Melbourne Business School. He has held executive positions with blue-chip companies around the world. Sir Cary Cooper is a Distinguished Professor of Organizational Psychology and Health at Lancaster University, UK. He is Chair of the Academy of Social Sciences, the Editor-in-Chief of the scholarly journal Stress and Health and the author of many books on workplace health. Sir Cary received a CBE in 2001 for his contributions to occupational safety and health, and is a regular contributor to radio and TV on topics in occupational psychology and health. In 2014, Sir Cary was awarded a knighthood in the Queen's Birthday Honour's List for his services to the social sciences.

Cover 1
Title 6
Copyright 7
Dedication 8
Contents 10
List of Figures 12
Foreword by 13
Acknowledgements 16
About the Authors 17
1 What’s Going On? 18
The Change delusion 19
The Planning delusion 22
The Behavioural delusion 26
The Customer delusion 28
The People delusion 29
The Leadership delusion 32
2 Strategic Sensing – Not Just Thinking 37
Trapped in the north view 38
In search of D-options 39
The need for strategic sensing 41
Stretching seeing 42
Stretching feeling 47
3 Co-Creating a Compelling Story 53
The mobilizing challenge: people who Can, Know and Want 53
The power of collective dialogue and sensemaking 56
Making collective sense of seven ‘simple’ questions 58
4 Co-Creating Distinctive Strategies 75
Beyond conventional planning 76
Beyond monopolized planning 77
Co-creating with the board 78
Co-creating with internal outsiders 81
Co-creating with customers 84
Co-creating with mass-consumers 86
Co-creating with additional stakeholders 90
5 Realizing Distinctive Strategies 92
Linking strategy creation and execution 95
Middle managers don’t just do 98
Changing engines whilst flying the plane 101
Realizing strategy through individual action 108
6 Overcoming Inertia 110
Organizational inertia – asleep at the switch 112
Individual inertia – the elephant in the room 113
Why do individual employees withdraw energies? 118
What are key drivers for exerting extra-energies? 124
The longing for recognition 127
7 Sustaining Organizational Energy 137
Sustaining customer-centricity 137
Sustaining critical mass 140
Sustaining combined energies at multiple levels 141
Sustaining momentum 144
Sustaining energy through social media 147
Sustaining leadership orchestration 148
Afterword 153
Glossary 156
Notes 164
Index 178