Strategy as a Learning Process

Hughes, R.L., & Beatty, K.C. (2005). Becoming a strategic leader. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass

An important part of strategic thinking is visual, imaginative, and intuitive. Visual Explorer is a tool for supporting this often neglected part of strategic thinking. VE supports strategy as a learning process, and can help clarify shared strategic understanding of who we are, where we are, and where we want to go, as well as discerning key strategic drivers.

The benefits of Visual Explorer ™ for strategic leadership & strategy creation include:

• Help assess “who we are” and “where we are” as a company in a marketplace
• Scan your environment and your organization with fresh eyes
• Explore, clarify and communicate mission, vision, and values
• Helping identify key strategic drivers
• Surface ideas, intuitions, and new perspectives
• Get people out of their “stuck” perspectives
• Engage emotional undercurrents

Rich Hughes and Kate Beatty (2005) describe strategy as a learning process. Their book Becoming a Strategic Leader shows the importance of both R-mode (“right brain”) and L-mode (“left brain”) processes for this type of learning, and describes how to use VE as a tool for strategic thinking.

Visual Explorer is useful for the front and middle of this learning process: assessing where we are, and, understanding who we are and where we want to go, and focusing on key strategic drivers.

VE is also useful in “clearing the lens” of the strategic learning process—clarifying mission, vision and values.

Facilitation

The five basic steps for a Visual Explorer session apply here, as well as the further measures suggested for fostering dialogue. It can be quite useful to capture the key images, metaphors, and language from the VE session as a means of engaging others in the strategic learning process.

Example

Bruce Byington, CCL Senior Faculty, teaches a process of strategic driver identification using Visual Explorer. Strategic drivers are those relatively few determinants of sustainable competitive advantage for a particular organization in a particular industry or competitive environment (Hughes & Beatty, 2005, p. 27). Visual Explorer’s R-mode processing can bring out new ideas and help to "unstick" people and groups.

1. Use VE to explore some of the following framing questions:

• What industry or business are we in?
• What is our vision?
• What would real success look like?
• What are we missing that might surprise us?
• What is the key organizational capability we need to drive our strategy?

2. Brainstorm potential strategic drivers, as informed by the VE dialogue.

3. Sort, classify, and prioritize potential drivers.

Further Reading

Hughes, R.L., & Beatty, K.C. (2005). Becoming a strategic leader. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

Mintzberg, H. (1989). Mintzberg on management: Inside our strange world of organizations. New York: The Free Press.

Palus, C.J. & Horth, D.M. (2002). The leader’s edge: Six creative competencies for navigating complex challenges. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.