Strategy

i'm writing a series on 7 misunderstandings of strategy. this is #3, about why good strategy must account for affect/emotion and not be over-focused on cognition.

read them all here: https://vaughntan.org/strategy

will post the full essay by end of the week. meanwhile, as a series of casts below 👇

not-knowing ✹ 🍕-fan ✹ productive discomfort + idk ✹ Marseille / Singapore / Auvergne ✹ The Uncertainty Mindset (2020) ✹ now: vaughntan.org/now-ish

strategy is often approached as a heavily analytical exercise that emphasises data collection, experimentation, frameworks for analysis. this is generally accurate. but emphasising the importance of analysis usually means that emotion and affect are overlooked.

2 reasons why it's bad to overlook affect/emotion in thinking about strategy:
	1. discomfort/fear/anger stops us from considering important but unpleasant possibilities that strategy should engage with,
	2. discomfort/fear/anger impedes the org change which strategy usually requires.

in other words, being aware of the affect/emotion aspects of strategy makes it possible to do better strategy by,
	1. considering a wider range of scenarios/possibilities to inform strategy-making,
	2. making strategy that is more likely to be successfully implemented in an org.

acknowledging affect/emotion enables more complete strategy-making that doesn't downplay scary/uncomfortable aspects of the strategic situation. but it also enables building strategy that is easier to implement successfully inside an organisation.

affect/emotion affects your ability to implement strategy successfully. this is because strategy always involves changing how things get done and how success gets defined. this invariably disrupts ways of working that people in the org have gotten used to and gotten good at.

change invariably makes people become angry or scared — or both. people who are angry or scared by a change are less effective at what they do and less likely to help make the change happen.

strategy-making can acknowledge affect/emotion in several ways. here are 3 of them:
	1. describe strategy in words/concepts that make sense at the level of implementation,
	2. implement strategy as small, innocuous, low-stakes actions,
	3. create strategy from the ground up (vs from the top down).

these are what i call "sneaky strategies" for implementing change without activating the many org antibodies that invariably work to preserve the status quo. big, legible strategy fits neatly on board slides. Sneaky strategies look messy and illegible but are more likely to work.

sneaky strategies are "sneaky" because they recognise that affect/emotion (i.e., discomfort, fear, and anger) are real obstacles to change, and they configure themselves intentionally to create change without activating affect/emotion in the org — they sneak around the problem by acknowledging that there is a problem.

to summarise, good strategy isn't all about cognition. being aware of the influence of affect/emotion makes it possible to do better strategy by,
	1. considering a wider range of scenarios/possibilities to inform strategy-making,
	2. making strategy that is easier to successfully implement.

this is #3 in a series about strategy misunderstandings. the full essay will be up soon, and you can read them all here:

to summarise, good strategy isn't all about cognition. being aware of the influence of affect/emotion makes it possible to do better strategy by,
	1. considering a wider range of scenarios/possibilities to inform strategy-making,
	2. making strategy that is easier to successfully implement.

this is #3 in a series about strategy misunderstandings. the full essay will be up soon, and you can read them all here: https://vaughntan.org/strategy

being more aware of affect/emotion in strategy-making may include:
	1. bringing in outsiders to identify and challenge implicit assumptions
	2. rigorously interrogating goals and considering whether they should be changed
	3. training leaders to recognise and embrace discomfort

each of these 3 actions causes the org to rethink comfortable habits + opens up new pathways for thinking about assumptions and goals. e.g., kodak, as dominant player in photo film, avoided discomfort when it ignored emerging digital photo tech — that turned out to be a bad idea.

uncomfortable ideas activate how we feel, not just how we think. and how we feel influences both how we think and what we think about. this happens when we downplay ideas/scenarios which are scary or uncomfortable.(remember kodak?)

acknowledging affect/emotion makes it easier to actively consider uncomfortable ideas instead of ignoring/downplaying them. this makes it possible to do better strategy that accounts more completely for the environment.