Strategic opposition
The Icy Pole Police
A close friend, let’s call her Meg, is in her mid-60s and undergoing treatment for advanced cancer. Thankfully, Meg’s responding very well, but it’s been a rough ride. Especially as she lives alone in a small suburban flat. So, when, one night, she was sleepless, hot and edgy, she put on a dressing gown and slippers and decided to walk a kilometre to the nearest 24-7 convenience store to buy something she knew would help: an icy pole (a popsicle or ice lolly for those in the Northern Hemisphere).
Meg bought three and was so exhausted by her walk that she sat on a garden bed and started eating one. Within a couple of minutes, a police cruiser, lights flashing, pulled up next to her.
The officers got out and asked Meg what she was doing. Meg realised that a dishevelled, older woman sitting on a garden edge eating ice-creams at 3am was perhaps not conventional behaviour, so she laughed, and explained her situation. The police understood and offered her a ride home. Meg accepted, gratefully, and the police told her that they’d prefer her not to be walking alone in her neighbourhood at 3am.
But then, what they said next surprised Meg: “In future, if you’re not feeling well, and you want icy poles, let us know. Just ring us. We’ll get them for you and bring them around”.
Now, Meg hasn’t yet tested this new service offering of the police, but I’m encouraging her to do so, to see how it works in practice. Regardless, this act of empathic concern left a very nice flavour in Meg’s mouth.
Question: What ‘above and beyond’ customer service are your people providing, without explicit instruction?
Protest vs Strategy
Speaking of police, this week I’ve lived with the sound of a police helicopter hovering above my house for hours at a time. I’m no suspect, or harbouring fugitives (nor am I in need of icy poles), so why?
I live very close to the epicentre of this week’s riots by construction industry agitators who oppose mandatory COVID vaccinations. They’ve massed in hundreds, smashed up cars, thrown bottles at police, and damaged buildings. One of my healthcare clients even had to close a vaccination site that was in the path of these protestors, who were behaving abusively to her staff.
I’m fully jabbed and I believe in mandatory vaccination for some occupational groups. But, if you’re reading this on Friday 24th September, today the NSW Supreme Court begins to test whether an aged care provider can mandate vaccinations for staff. The court will determine whether ‘bodily integrity’ is a right, whether there’s sufficient ‘scientific certainty concerning the efficacy and safety of vaccines’ to merit compulsory vaccines, and whether excluding people from jobs prevents their ‘right to earn a living’.
Complex legal issues are involved here, and the courts are the right place to test mandatory vaccinations as a societal strategy. The bottle-throwers and abuse-hurlers should ask themselves, “What are we really trying to achieve?” Because, as far as I can see, it’s not working.
Question: How do make your opposition to something strategic?
Digestible Chunks
Do you have any ‘gifts of COVID’? Those aspects of life that run better during lockdowns?
Here’s one from me: the reliance on digital meetings means that we’re splitting strategy development into much smaller chunks. In the old days, collaboration costs drove process design for strategy creation: “Bringing a group of directors and executives together is difficult, so let’s do it all in one weekend”.
It led to the ‘strategy retreat’ being a preferred, sometimes default, approach. But, it’s far from ideal.
I’m now using processes with clients that use a similar number of ‘contact hours’ (perhaps between 8 - 16 hours) but divided over 4 chunks, and with shorter ‘check-ins’ (30 - 45 minutes) in between those. The advantages are numerous:
It better maps the way the best ideas are developed, with time for ‘divergent thinking’ first (the creative and generative), with the ‘convergent thinking’ later (the analytical and decisive).
People get breathing space between segments. More energy, more focus.
Different parts of the process require different thinking. Future visioning is very different to considering quantified growth options, so people can bring their ‘best selves’ to each discussion.
Genuine iterative thinking occurs, so we refine concepts successively over multiple meetings. The ideas are genuinely better this way.
We can ask tough questions as we go, rather than leave them unanswered in a ‘parking lot’ flipchart.
It doesn’t favour ‘rapid extroverts’, as the space between sessions allows the ‘thoughtful introverts’ time to process, reflect and plan contributions to the next session.
So, even as we plan our ‘roadmap beyond COVID’, I’m very keen to preserve some of these processes and look forward to convincing my clients to ditch the traditional ‘two day strategy retreat’.
Question: What processes can you break into smaller chunks that gives a better result?
A non-executive director in a client’s board meeting this week told me that she not only looks forward to 5MSM each Friday but then re-reads them over time.
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In the meantime, have a great spring weekend (for those in the South) and for those everywhere, enjoy an icy pole (or your frozen dessert of choice).
Andrew