Strategic Thinking, Planning & Review
Our systemic approach to strategic review and planning assists clients to test the robustness of their current strategies and challenge the efficacy of their direction. Our approach helps to preempt shifts in the environment, consider key uncertainties and competitors.
The outcome? A clarity of the strategic direction of the business and confidence in the relevance of strategic imperatives. Our holistic approach to strategic development builds a level of thinking agility to manage possible disruptive change through active discussion about the logic of the business model and organisational fragility and competence.
Our organisational strategy services are purposed towards building the effectiveness and capacity of the organisation:
- To achieve its goals in a sustainable and responsible manner.
- To fuel the evolution and growth of the organisation’s vision and respond to its WHY.
Our strategic review and planning services are designed to fit within the organisation’s current planning and review cycle or designed as stand-alone strategic advisory to support a new direction, expansion or consolidation initiative.
Our organisation strategy services are tailored to provide solutions in:
- End to end strategic review, research and development engagements
- Rolling strategic plan review and realignment
- Scenario planning to evaluate options and strategic risk
- Strategic war-game to test and plan a particular strategic initiative
- Strategic alignment and planning execution
Holistic Design that Builds Agility
Our strategic advisory services and unique approach to strategy creation is both researched and emergent. This creates a more agile response in strategy review and development.
Our strategy work is centred on two core activities:
- Developing a holistic understanding of the future direction the organisation wishes to take and the systemic thinking underpinning to define the strategic choices to follow.
- Creating a set of aligned and self supporting initiatives and plans that will create the momentum, growth and effectiveness to evolve the business success
The approach we take embraces a holistic view of your business within its environment and is grounded in our deep knowledge, experience and research in;
- Systems thinking and soft systems modelling
- Scenario planning and designed ‘war-games’
- Complexity frameworks and principles
- Social research and analysis
In addition we apply the following principles in our approach to strategy work
- Core competency and human capital
- Vision and values based strategy
- Sustainability and organisational aesthetics
- Business concept (model) innovation
We operate with credentials in;
- Scenario Planning from the Global Business Network
- SenseMaker TM Narrative Analysis and Cynefin framework modelling and from Cognitive Edge
- Systems thinking and psychology university based disciplines
- GRI sustainability reporting (UK)
Our approach to strategy inherently builds adaptation and a holistic perspective to help the leadership team build greater strategic capacity and inventiveness of the organisation over time.
Strategic Research
Our research approach is suitable for strategic reviews and to evaluate a specific strategy with multi-dimensional impacts.
We blend more traditional secondary research methods (bench marking and environment scan activities) with social inquiry methods as part of our strategy research. The research methods are founded on the models of systemic thinking (including appreciative systems) and interpretive consultation.
Our research approach builds a progressive depth and breath of understanding throughout the review. The approach builds the understanding to ‘tease out’ the non-linear issues and themes in the external environment and within your business. In practice this gives us the ability to consider and deal with items of ‘fact’, ‘insights’ and ‘aspiration’ from a sound theoretical basis.
Strategic Alignment & Implementation
The implementation of strategy is often compromised by poor execution and people alignment from the executive level and throughout the organization.
Our strategy alignment service ensures the intent and uniqueness of your organizational strategy is understood and translated into executable plans of action from the executive team outward.
The approach builds a consistent narrative that facilitates understanding of the strategy as the ‘living’ driver of leadership, individual and team actions.
Our alignment and planning offers
- Strategy alignment audit
- An audit of the level of understanding and alignment of your strategy with operational plans, objectives and culture
- Strategy aligned planning
- Facilitated engagement that guides the development of operational plans and initiatives to directly support the business strategy, across the organization or for specific divisions
- Alignment coaching
- Gain executive and management alignment around the defined scope, accountability and deliverables of your strategies and distinctive advantages through our strategy coaching