A great quote from the manager of the highly successful new plans for the New York Botanical Gardens. A rejuvenation program was underway.
"At the time it was created, the plan was better that the institution. The plan was a view of what we wanted to be. As people came to understand and accept the plan, they came to embrace the Garden that they saw 'through' the plan, rather than the Garden as it actually was, even though not much had actually been accomplished yet."
We need a mixture of strategy as thought and strategy as felt - satisfying the needs of the corporation. This means to have created a valid hypothesis and then to allow the satisfaction of the broad community to emerge through the authenticity that they can bring to it through their own challenging and then ownership.
Strategy On Purpose
Plans that are developed by remote - often robotic analysts - then written up as doctrine and mission statements to be hung around people's necks are proven to fail. Nobody cares about them. The Economist stated recently that only 63% (of their research base) achieved a reasonable amount of the promised returns on their business plans. They went on to say that they were simply not 'felt' to be owned by the people who had to deliver them. Discouraging? Entirely not surprising.
"Aligning word with deed." -Jeanne Lietka
Recently a new phrase has emerged - 'Strategy as Experienced' - strategies that are felt/witnessed and owned by those whose lives they effect. Not rocket science. Felt meaningfully and personally. Compelling and understood by those whose behaviours we demand to change accordingly - to suit the new structures and paradigms.
Let's be sure we enable that experience!!
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