Designed to not fail

If you work corporate, at some point you’ll probably be handed a strategy document. It might be the first week you start a new job, or perhaps you’ve been around long enough to have written a few yourself. 

Whatever your experience, there's a good chance that when you read it you had this thought: “I haven’t got a clue what this is telling me to do.”

The document is long and has been signed off by important people. It’s got a vision statement. Clear problem diagnosis. Pillars of change. Timelines of projected deliverables. Values. There’s a ton of information that you theoretically understand. You must be missing something. 

Maybe I’m a little slow, but it took me a while to work this one out. You’re not missing anything. The document isn’t telling you what to do because it is not designed to give direction, it’s designed not to fail. 

And if our systems are designed not to fail, are they also designed not to succeed?

Why strategy sounds like strategy but it isn’t

Most strategy documents I’ve seen are written to get approval. 

In large organisations, particularly government, putting a strategy together is a way to justify spend and convince decision-makers to sign off. They probably started with a template that asked questions like: What’s the problem that needs to be fixed? Why is it worth public money? What are the risks? Who is accountable?

People who write these strategies are skilled at getting permission. The goal has little to do with how change will actually happen, which is what a real strategy should do.

By the time a clear strategy has survived review and consultation, all the sharp edges have been sanded down, the definitive language has been replaced by corporate speak, specific beliefs have been broadened out to safe data points. And you end up with something that nobody important can object to. 

And so mission statements become vague, politically sanitised goals. Things like improve mental health, reduce unemployment, increase exports, be more digital. 

Real strategy makes a specific, contestable claim about what exactly needs to change to improve the way things currently are. And for that reason, real strategy is often polarising. If everyone agrees with your strategy, you probably don’t have one.

What real strategy looks like

In 2001, Portugal decriminalised drug use. I don’t know what the approval process was for that strategy, but somehow it got legislated. The belief at the centre of it was that addiction is a health issue, not a criminal one. The strategy is anchored on the theory that criminalisation doesn’t reduce drug use, it only pushes people into hiding. 

This strategy did something that most strategies don’t do, it clearly defined what the organisation believes is causing the problem. The mission statement wasn’t ‘reduce drug use’. The organisation believed removing stigma and punishment would lead to better outcomes. They stuck with it through all the critique and saw results. 

Southwest Airlines did something similar when they transformed their business model. They made a bet that customers care more about cheap flights than comfort. Again, their strategic belief was very clear, that many customers are looking to save money, not have the best experience. 

They stripped everything back, from aircraft types to meals and seats, and they too faced immediate backlash. Reports predicted it would tank their business, but instead it transformed how the whole industry operated. 

Neither of these strategies were put together by filling in a template or using another organisation’s strategy as a blueprint. The only reason they existed was because someone brave in a leadership position took a new perspective on an old problem and ran with it.

Our systems are designed to keep the status quo

So if you’re new to all this and you’re wondering why you can’t make heads or tails of a strategy document, that’s why. And if you’re an old hand, you may be feeling a flicker of recognition. 

Strategy language is designed to satisfy reviews and appease upwards. It is designed to reward agreement and minimise risk, which is why intelligent people keep producing underwhelming outcomes. 

And while alignment and risk management are important, what you’re often trading away is the possibility of anything getting better. You are sacrificing growth for the comfort of an establishment that is scared to rock the boat, not least because those who suffer most from broken systems are rarely the people who control them. 

A brave leader decides they understand something important about how the world works, and they organise people and resources around that belief. Then they have to live with the consequences long enough to discover whether they were right. Anything else is just organisational maintenance.