The Strategy Paradox
I like to read the blog of Mr. Irving Wladawsky-Berger, a retired IBM senior VP that I admire tremendously for his technical leadership as well as business and social observations. In his blog, I like his style of putting things in plain English, he doesn’t pretend to know everything and didn’t try to answer all the questions of the world. So I was made aware of the book from Michael Raynor, The Strategy Paradox. I downloaded the first chapter of the book, after reading it, I do think this is a rare book that give a fresh idea to business organizations as how to cope with the inherent risk of committing to a long term strategy, in other words, the big bet!
“Most strategies are built on specific beliefs about the future.” writes Mr. Raynor in his book. “Unfortunately, the future is deeply unpredictable. Worse, the requirements of breakthrough success demand implementing strategy in ways that make it impossible to adapt should the future not turn out as expected. The result is the Strategy Paradox: strategies with the geatest possibility of success also have the greatest possibility of failure. Resolving this paradox requires a new way of thinking about strategy and uncertainty.”
He rightly points out that “the best performing firms often have more in common with humiliated bankrupts than with companies that have managed merely to survive. In fact, the very traits we have come to identify as determinants of high achievement are also the ingredients of total collapse. And so it turns out that, behaviorally at least, the opposite of success is not failure, but mediocrity.”
This observation isn’t new, there’ve been great amount of publications that analyze successful and failing organizations. I frequently hear in Chinese movies that “there’s fine line between success and failure” [胜败只差一线]. The main content of this book provides some methodologies and tools to guide senior managers to sail thru the imperative of making a strategy commitment while keeping all the options open and reacting flexibly should the premise of the adopted strategy wasn’t inline with the actual market condition. That whole teaching doesn’t apply to my work obviously, but the observation is applicable to all things in life.
I almost felt like being pointed the finger at when reading this at the last page: “Realizing this, most managers (people) shy away from the bold commitments that success seems to demand, choosing instead timid, unremarkable strategies, sacrificing any chance at greatness for a better chance at mere survival.”
I feel like I’m in survival mode in China, personally and professionally. This prompts me to think of my new year resolution, what would I want to accomplish during 2008. I want to make bold steps, but I’m afraid to disturb my little confortable life…