We are Entering the Age of the Strategist
We are entering the age of the strategist according to McKinsey, who suggest that "a powerful means of coping with today’s more volatile environment is increasing the time a company’s top team spends on strategy", and that "involving more senior leaders in strategic dialogue makes it easier to stay ahead of emerging opportunities, respond quickly to unexpected threats, and make timely decisions".
This suggestion seems to fit with other research indicating that more and more larger companies are appointing Chief Strategy Officers (CSOs) or Heads of Strategy. But, whilst several companies may be seeing the benefits of a greater focus on strategy, there are still reasons for serious concern about the lack of strategic capability at all levels, even in large organisations.
As McKinsey say, "rare is the company...where all members of the top team have well-developed strategic muscles. Some executives reach the C-suite because of functional expertise, while others, including business unit heads and even some CEOs, are much stronger on execution than on strategic thinking. In some companies, that very issue has given rise to the position of Chief Strategy Officer". But, McKinsey also report that “even a number of executives playing this role disclosed that they didn’t feel adequately prepared for it”.
Recently I have spoken to a few CSOs from multi-national corporations with employees numbering tens of thousands. In some cases the companies have been so large that they have several strategists at various stages of their career. Others are very large but have a lean strategy team. But in each case they have been defining career structures in terms of the levels of knowledge and capabilities required of these strategists. They have not got to the point of linking these career profiles to any career development programmes, nor have they gone as far as defining what the non-strategists need to know about strategy, even amongst the senior manager and director ranks.
What does this mean? It means strategy is probably not well-developed, understood, communicated or implemented at any level in most organisations. Even in the rare cases where the top team are really up to the job it would suggest that good plans are unlikely to be implemented, and the benefits of bottom-up contributions to strategy are probably being forsaken.
Admittedly my findings are based on a relatively small sample, and are far from scientific, but they seem to be confirmed by McKinsey's research, and they have never been disputed in conversation with executives.
So, are we entering the age of the strategist? And, if we are, what is being done by companies to address the capability problems? What do non-strategists at different ranks need to know about strategy?
By Paul Barnett, Founder and CEO, The Strategy Bureau
