Predictions

A novelty today, but . . .

I saw this picture this week and was struck by the faces of the onlookers. It’s 1927, New York City, and spaghetti is not just a novelty, but a sensation.

Here is something we take utterly for granted: I guarantee every one of you reading this has eaten pasta. Little did these onlookers know that 60% of their great-grandchildren would be eating it at least once a week.

Question: What novelty in your business will be universal in future?

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Four litmus tests of strategy

This week, a CEO challenged me with a gem during our catch-up on the strategy we crafted together three years back.

He asked, "We've nailed our goals, but Andrew, how do you spot a winning strategy upfront, before any outcomes are seen?"

With nearly 1,000 strategies under my belt over two decades, I've honed in on four key signs:

1. Cut through: There’s a ‘wow’ that comes from identifying the handful of accelerant factors that drive the biggest successes. One of my local government clients, with a population of 200,000 in a formerly disadvantaged area sees that 80% of their breakthroughs will come from just three things: ‘greening’ (tree canopy & beautification) + ‘diversity’ (cultural wellbeing) + ‘prosperity’ (attracting infrastructure investment).

2. Communicability: There’s a story that can be told, easily, by a leader, or a staff member, often in the form, “You know how [INSERT PROBLEM]. Well, we aim to solve that by [INSERT RESULTS]. And, to do that we [INSERT 3 MAJOR PRIORITIES]”

3. Architecture: There’s a logic (often visual) that cascades from a single vision or purpose, through a handful of priorities, supported by enablers (e.g., people, technology, finance, partnerships) and leading directly to a subset of major results.

4. Operationalisation: Execution is easier because the strategy acts as a framework for decision making — and activity planning, and reporting, and risk assessment.

Question: How well does your strategy measure up?

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Measure what matters

One of my favourite ‘fake quotes’ of Einstein is this one: “Not everything that can be counted counts. And not everything that counts can be counted”.

It was in fact the sociologist William Bruce Cameron who wrote this in 1963 and he was commenting on the fact that the big assurances that organisations — and societies — want to provide are often unmeasurable.

I challenged one of my university clients to come up with just four assurances (and associated metrics) for the entirety of their research activity. They argued, “We can’t do that. That’s way too reductionist!”

I insisted they try, and here’s what they came up with:

1. World-leading research university (metric = global ranking)

2. World’s best researchers (metric = h-index (publications x citations))

3. Investment in research (metric = grant funding + commercialisation revenue)

4. Impactful research (metric = percentage of research conducted in 3 areas of global challenge)

But, now we had a problem. Not all of these are equally measurable. So, we had to separate out:

a) that which is already measured and reported (So, “do it now”)

b) what which is (or could be) measured, but not reported (“Do it next”)

c) that which we don’t (yet) know how to measure (“Do it later”)

Often (c) is neglected, not deferred. That’s because it requires detecting subjective sentiment. Or it’s a lead indicator that predicts some future state. Or an abstraction that doesn’t lend itself to specific measurement. Whatever the reasons, think about Cameron’s dictum and recognise that those metrics might be the most important of all.

Question: How can you focus attention on that which matters the most?

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Watch out this week for the equivalent of ‘spaghetti’ in your surroundings, and I’ll see you next Friday.

Andrew