Once we understand the difference between comfort zones and safety zones, and the importance of creating safety zones during complexity, we need to return to the original question of this essay: How do we build on the local service opportunities and meet the local needs of each community we serve, and also keep consistency in certain systems and processes across the entire company?
For many leaders, this is an either or question. Either we completely support the local service provider, or we impose corporate systems and processes that circumvent local choice and local decision-making. This binary way of thinking never bodes well when dealing with complexity or adaptive challenges.
Jim Collins and Jerry Porras in their seminal work, Built To Last: Successful Habits of Visionary Companies (HarperBusiness, 1994, write that visionary companies embrace the “Genius Of The And.” The opposite of the “Genius of the And” is the “Tyranny of the OR.” As they explain, “.. a key aspect of highly visionary companies: They do not oppress themselves with what we call the “Tyranny of the OR” - the rationale view that cannot easily accept paradox, that cannot live with two seemingly contradictory forces or ideas at the same time. The “Tyranny of the OR” pushes people to believe that things must be either A OR B, but not both.” For example, this translates into change or stability, bold or conservative, high quality or low cost.
As they continue, “Instead of being oppressed by the “Tyranny of the OR,” highly visionary companies liberate themselves with the “Genius of the AND” - the ability to embrace both extremes of a number of dimensions at the same time. Instead of choosing between A OR B, they figure out a way to have both A AND B.” For example, this translates into purpose and profit, fixed core ideology and vigorous change, conservative core and opportunistic experimentation. “We’re not talking about mere balance here,” Collins and Porras note. “Balance implies going to the midpoint, fifty-fifty, half and half. It seeks to do very well in the short-term and very well in the long-term. A visionary company doesn’t simply balance between idealism and profitability; it seeks to be highly idealistic and highly profitable.” In short, visionary companies build on local service opportunities and at the exact same time, they maintain consistency in certain systems across the entire company.
When dealing with issues related to complexity and adaptivity, and grasping the strategic choice to embrace the Genius of the AND, leaders need to have a strategic mindset and understand strategic intent. The former is a unique understanding about the relationship between strategy and day to day operations. The later is focused on understanding a holistic and long term perspective on strategy.
In regards to the later, we need to recognize that strategy is a complicated term which sums up three core concepts. First, it is an extensively premeditated, carefully built, long term plan designed to achieve a particular goal. Second, it has to be adaptable by nature due to unforeseen variables rather than presenting a rigid set of instructions or tactics which has the potential to create organizational vulnerability. Third, it serves an important function in promoting ongoing evolutionary success.
The later two definitions of strategy recognizes the dynamic and complex nature of the world within which we live and work. A premeditated and carefully built plan may be the right thing at the moment of its creation. However, if the service environment changes rapidly, or an unexpected event like COVID-19 shows up, then the plan is dysfunctional.
However, the strategic intent within the plan is not dysfunctional. It may still be the right strategic direction, but the pathway to achieving it may need to change given the unforeseen variables that have surfaced. In essence, strategy has to be an adaptable and evolutionary, and strategic intent, which for me is the evolution of strategy over multiple planning cycles, has to be clear.
With this in mind and recognizing the importance of leaders having a strategic mindset within a period of complexity and adaptivity, we need to understand the difference between the following two terms: individual competencies and organizational capabilities. The former refers to a person’s knowledge and skills required to fulfill their specific role requirements and to solve certain kinds of problems or challenges. The later refers to the collective abilities of the company required to execute the business strategy. This is an important distinction, because sometimes leaders work at the competency level and other times they work at the capabilities level. Often, when leading an organization through times of complexity and adaptivity, they need to work at both levels. This is why the Genius of the AND is so important to understand as it relates to strategy and strategic intent.
Furthermore, when we embrace a strategic mindset, we also need to understand that there are key choices that need to be made as we move through complexity. One of the first choices is how to create strategy. Recognizing the stabilizing elements of a constant and well communicated organizational mission, vision and core values, leaders will typically gather and plan for the future. This act of strategic planning, or what is called strategic formation in very large, for-profit companies, boils down to a choice between a planned process and an emergent process. In a planned process, there is a defined and well-structured sequence of meetings that is determined before everyone gathers to do the work of strategic planning. In an emergent process, planning is an unfolding and evolving process through a dynamic and less structured sequence of meetings, guided largely by firsthand, day-to-day information, and an understanding about emerging trends and changing risk profiles.
During times of complexity and volatile market conditions, there will be numerous adaptive challenges and countless technical problems, some of which are intertwined. This tangled element will cause a disorientation of roles at the individual level and the department level, expose old and new conflicts, and challenge norms and mindsets at the individual and team levels. All of which will damage personal trust and strategic trust, i.e. the trust people have in their team. And when this happens, people will naturally default to a “us versus them” line of thought. Geographical distance and digital communication often exacerbates the problems of this nature.
The solution is two fold and critical to dealing with this situation. As Martine Haas and Mark Mortensen in their article, “The Secrets of Great Teamwork” (Harvard Business Review, June 2016), write: “The solution … is developing a shared mindset among team members - something team leaders can do by fostering a common identity and common understanding.” This shared mindset is based on clarity about mission, vision, and core values, but it also is based on an understanding of strategy and strategic intent.
With this common understanding, the second choice leaders need to make is about strategic execution. This is the sum of all the actions, and communication about how to accomplish the desired strategy. The choice at this point boils down to being directive or participatory. In the former, execution is a top down driven process with minimal bilateral communication. In the later, execution involves many other people and communication is multidirectional. Again referencing the earlier mentioned work of Collins and Porras, clarity about the concept of the Genius of the AND allows leaders to know when to choose one or the other in order to accomplish the desired outcome.
Still, as they make these choices in the midst of complexity, we need to remember an insight shared by James Belasco and Ralph Stayer in their book, Flight of the Buffalo: Soaring To Excellence, Learning to Let Employees Lead (Time Warner, 1994). As they write, “The primary purpose of strategic planning is not to strategically plan for the future, although that's an important purpose of the exercise. It is primarily to develop the strategic management mind-set in each and every individual in the organization. The purpose of the process is not only to produce a plan. It is to produce a plan that will be owned and understood by the people who have to execute it.”
To create a plan that is owned and understood by those who have to execute it, we need to grow a strategic mindset. This mindset is made up of three components. First, all involved need to understand the company’s strategy and strategic intent. Second, they need to understand the context or environment within which the plan will be executed. And third, they need to understand the concept of operational excellence.
As to the last piece about operational excellence, I always turn to the work of Tom Peters who defined it as “a workplace philosophy where problem solving, teamwork and leadership result in on-going improvements or continuous improvements in the organization.” I like this definition because it recognizes that the needs of the customer or person served will always be changing. Thus, the organization needs to engage in continuous improvement. It is not just get everything done on a day to day basis, but it is to accomplish the daily work while simultaneously improving it. Again, we see the inter-relationship between strategy, context, and operations and the importance of the Genius of the AND as part of the strategic mindset.
When it comes to building on the local service opportunities and meeting the needs of each community where we serve, plus creating and maintaining consistency in certain systems and processes across the entire company platform, clarity about key concepts and an embracing of the Genius of the AND concept are mission critical in the short and long term. When more and more people have a strategic mindset, their capacity to handle complexity and adaptive challenges within a volatile market environment becomes a force multiplier and a strategic advantage.
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