It has been quite some time since I have posted to this blog, which is a pattern that I think is going to stick. Jeff and I have been completely swamped with other initiatives, while our Association Renewal LLC work has taken a back seat.
I still care very deeply about the role of strategy in associations, and I think it's an area that needs some real work. So I will post now and again as I encounter articles or work that generates insights about the topic.
For example, Cynthia Montgomery has an article in the January HBR that lays out what is now the "new" conventional wisdom about strategy: it doesn't take the form of an unchanging plan, rather it is an "organic process that is adaptive, holistic, and open-ended."
I agree with that, but she also seems to over-emphasize the role of the CEO in my opinion:
The need to create and re-create reasons for a company's continued existence sets the strategist apart from every other individual in the company. He or she must keep one eye on how the company is currently adding value and the other eye on changes, both inside and outside the company, that either threaten its position or present some new opportunity for adding value. Guiding this never-ending process, bringing perspective to the midst of action and purpose to the flow—not solving the strategy puzzle once—is the crowing responsibility of the CEO.
I think laying that kind of responsibility on the CEO is what generated the overly analytical, predictive style of strategic planning that she criticizes: since everything is on your shoulders, you'd better be able to show exactly how it will play out, and then you can control everything. The world doesn't work that way. I wish her article talked more about how you empower the whole system to be focusing on value. Forget the "crowning" responsibility—just empower the system to do what it needs to do.
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