Living Strategy: Guiding Your Association Through The Rugged Landscape Ahead

Living Strategy: Guiding Your Association Through The Rugged Landscape Ahead

By Paul Borawski and Arian Ward

© 2005 Paul Borawski & Arian Ward 1 September 6, 2005 Includes revisions to original version written in 6/03 and published in the Winter, 2004 Journal of Association Leadership, as well as Paul‘s 9/05 update on ASQ‘s progress

As we all know well, the world has changed dramatically since the times when traditional strategic planning first became the foundation on which organizations of all types are based, including associations. The landscape on which associations operated then was relatively predictable, stable, and homogenous. Now it is filled with uncertainty, rapid change, and increasingly diverse players and dynamics. These players not only think and act differently than they used to; they keep changing their minds about what they want and expect from the world around them. For example, one-size-fits-all memberships used to be the norm; now a wide range of choices in benefits and membership types are considered to be a minimum requirement by members. Yet given this dizzying environment in which associations find themselves, why do so many keep doing strategic planning as if it were still 1960? And even if they have an inspired vision of who they want to be based on their changing environment, how do they create the bridge between their aspirations and the day-to-day operations that members actually experience as the association? What associations need is strategy and a process for creating it that flexes, adapts, and evolves to still make sense in this complex environment, while keeping the organization seamlessly aligned with these strategic dynamics. In other words, they need a “living strategy!” In a nutshell, living strategy is:

the dynamic story of the shared aspirations, strategic direction, and strategic outcomes of the association and the community it supports,

emerging and continuously evolving from the collective knowledge of the community and from an expanding network of ongoing strategic conversations among all members

of the community around the questions that matter most to them, all seamlessly interwoven into the ―fabric‖ of the current organization through a

continuous process of reflection and renewal. One of the fundamental concepts of living strategy—both in terms of its content and of the evolving process itself is that in a dynamic, complex environment like what associations and other organizations face today, the future can‘t be ―planned.‖ Instead, we want the strategy process to come alive through discovering and exploring questions that really matter---through collaborative dialogue, thinking together, and sharing stories among all stakeholders, not just among a select group of leaders and experts. Living Strategy recognizes that associations and their environment are much more like living organisms within a complex ecological system than they are like mechanisms within a human-designed and controlled system. After all, they are made up of people within a world of many other people. What could be more natural, more unpredictable, and more ―alive‖ than people with all our frailties, moods, and dreams? Therefore, Living Strategy, as we practice it, is based on the sciences and tools related to living systems, particularly those that can be applied to organizations as living systems. These



include complexity science, life science, social science, community development, dialogue, storytelling, and organic approaches to knowledge and learning. To help further clarify what we mean by Living Strategy, the following table offers some distinctions between traditional strategic planning and Living Strategy. The more complex and interesting of these Living Strategy concepts are further described after the table and then illustrated through a story of how Living Strategy is being ―lived‖ within the American Society for Quality (ASQ). ASQ is not the only association looking into this more adaptive, inclusive approach to strategy. Other associations, including IEEE, SME, and PMI, have also initiated or benchmarked this Living Strategy approach.

Traditional Strategic Planning Living Strategy

Strategic planning Strategic thinking, questions, dialogue, and stories

Strategy as the primary driver of management control processes

―Strategy as Inquiry‖1 -- an integral part of a holistic, knowledge and community-based ―Sense and Respond System‖

Attempts to predict the future and build everything around this prediction

―You can‘t predict the future, but you can be ready for whatever it brings.‖2 ‖The only kind of strategy that makes sense in the face of unpredictable change is a strategy to become adaptive.... Planned responses do not work.‖3

Annual, linear process Ongoing, iterative process

Planning is done by a select group of leaders and ―experts‖ within a rigid, hierarchical organization

Living Strategy emerges from and supports the association‘s community. This community includes anyone who may have a stake in the outcome of the association, even if they don‘t yet know they may have a stake (such as potential new members or markets).

Strategic planning is highly political, controlled by a few key players attempting to maintain the status quo or jockey for more power, prestige, and resources.

―The law of requisite variety‖ – If a system is to be able to adapt to its external environment, it must incorporate as much or more variety than its environment.4 The diversity, intelligence, and passion of the entire community is put to work as part of an ongoing Sense and Respond System that gives each diverse group an important, interdependent role to play in the success of the whole community. The community creatively seizes or makes opportunities to co-create its own future, rather than waiting to let it happen to them.

Inputs as one-way ―data dumps‖ of current facts and collected data

Collective knowledge and intelligence gathering capabilities of the entire community are available ―just-in-time‖ to be used for critical reflection and interactive inquiry




Mechanistic, component thinking – Only by understanding the parts can we make sense of the whole, like ―cogs in the machine‖

Organic, systems thinking – ‖The elements of a living system can be understood only in relationship to the dynamics of the whole.‖5

The environment is predictable enough to be able to use a linear, cause/effect process to accurately plan and control how we operate in it.

In the non-linear, dynamic system in which we exist, we can only anticipate what is most likely to happen through continuous feedback, inquiry, and learning, and thus be prepared to respond collaboratively, quickly and intelligently to whatever emerges from the system.

Produces static text documents consisting of hierarchical components prescribing a plan for the future, moving from a big picture, long range plan down to near term, tactical actions.

Evolves dynamic, multi-modal vignettes, images, and dialogue - a living story of aspirations and possibilities that excites the passion and imagination of the people living it, and engages them in co-creating the emerging story and their shared future.

After a few face-to-face group interactions, a small number of individuals develop the strategic plan

Living Strategy continuously evolves out of ongoing, seamlessly interwoven: individual reflection and work and group face-to-face and virtual interactions and

collaborations

Strategic planning (and all other association activities, for that matter) leaves little time for meaningful conversations, since they‘re inefficient time wasters that don‘t produce the needed outputs. It moves as quickly as possible to solutions and actions.

Conversation as a core business process - the association is seen as a web of connected conversations around questions that really matter. The association is skilled at knowing when to ―stay in the question‖, thinking and dialoging about the most meaningful issues, and when it‘s time to act quickly and decisively.

Strategic planning is mainly an academic exercise with little relevance to the daily work of the association, as people must refer to a ―cheat-sheet,‖ wall chart, or web page to even remember this year‘s plan.

Everyone in the association lives strategy as a natural part of their work and relationship with the association. Each person has a deep understanding of Living Strategy, in their own words but with the same shared meaning. They keep ―one foot in the present and one foot in the future.‖

Additional strategic initiatives and activities keep getting added to an already overloaded workforce and schedule, with little regard for priority or capacity, often due to political pressures.

Ongoing, organized abandonment of projects and activities is part of living strategy. ―The first policy – and the foundation for all others – is to abandon yesterday.‖6 Tangible and intangible value to the community, not politics, keeps the association focused on what matters most to the community.




Assumes that strategy needs to be newly developed, deployed, and implemented each year.

Acknowledges that, in a sense, the association is already living in the future. The seeds are already there, expressed in existing behaviors and activities that exemplify what the association wants to become. You just need to find, harvest, spread, and cultivate these seeds.7

Underlying Concepts Of Living Strategy Organizations As Complex, Living Systems For over 300 years, organizations have been viewed in Newtonian terms, as big clocks that could be operated with complete predictability and precision, if only we designed and managed them properly. To do this, we were to break them into their component parts and by understanding each part, we could make sense of the whole. Structures such as departments, roles, responsibilities, and positions on an organization chart could be manipulated like pawns on a chessboard. Never mind that these also happened to be individuals and groups of people who might not think or act like the machine parts they were supposed to be. Even knowledge was broken into parts such as disciplines, subjects, and databases. Information technology compounded the problem, as we just gave ourselves the capability of accumulating and storing yet more data, making it even harder to make sense of the masses of data with which we were bombarding ourselves. Organizations felt they were making better decisions because they were based on extensive amounts of data and sophisticated models for processing the data.8 Our ―thing‖ view of the world gave us the technological capability and scientific objectivity to function flawlessly, if we just did it ―right.‖ This detached, reductionist viewpoint has led us to create a world around us that has lost touch with its natural roots and replaced them with unprecedented levels of chaos, fear, and violence in the guise of economic prosperity for a relative few. Organizations are less capable of charting a course through this chaos than ever, as they continue to rely on the same methods that created this mess. Enter the chaos and complexity scientists... ―Complexity theory looks at business systems in ways that are organic, nonlinear and holistic.‖ A few simple rules guide the interaction between the components of a complex system such as an organization:

1. It is critical to pay attention to the relationships between the components 2. ―Small changes can have large effects.‖



3. ―Interesting and unpredictable properties can be expected to emerge from a system. As a result, it is hard, if not impossible, to implement a strategic plan for anything but the short term. A hoped-for direction can be set but not the ultimate goal.‖9

A related concept that stems from the field of ecology is that the organization is an organism within a larger ecosystem, like a plant or animal is an organism within a forest or wetlands ecosystem. In essence, an ecosystem is a collection of all the living organisms within a shared environment interacting with each other and their environment. Thus, you can think of the organization as an organism within the ecosystem of its external environment, as well as an ecosystem itself within its own boundaries, since it too consists of organisms (people) interacting with each other and their shared environment. Organizations ―are self-organizing, like ecological niches.‖10 You can‘t design or control them any more than you can control the organisms and environment of a biological ecosystem. However you can influence them as humans have influenced all global ecosystems, but hopefully with better results. This also means that, like the organisms in a biological ecosystem, organizations must adapt when faced with rapid fluctuations in their environment or they will eventually die. The way organisms adapt, including organizations, is through a process of selection, such as natural selection in a biological ecosystem. For organizations, this involves knowing enough about what‘s happening in the environment to innovate and experiment with new forms and then learn enough from these experiments to adapt to the changes. This is a form of natural selection, as the organization chooses a new path through an increasingly rugged landscape, ensuring its survival despite the challenges. The sum of these perspectives is that the organization and its environment is a living system – ―a constantly pulsing, changing, interconnected world of rapidly interacting relationships, in which order emerges naturally from chaos without being controlled.‖11 Living Strategy strives to help the organization anticipate and influence this emergence.



Living Strategy As The Heart Of A Holistic, Knowledge And Community-Based “Sense And Respond System” The diagram above shows a conceptual model of how Living Strategy serves as the heart of a Sense and Respond System that relies primarily on the collective knowledge and intelligence gathering of the association community for its sensing capability. The Sense and Respond System links the association‘s environmental scanning, strategic, tactical, and operational environments into an integrated, whole-enterprise system. These work together to ensure that the association fully realizes its Living Strategy and rapidly and effectively senses and responds to the inevitable changes that occur in its environment. ―Every adaptive system, whether an individual living creature ... or a large organization, survives by making sense out of its environment and responding with an appropriate action.‖12 The Scan & Assessment process provides continuous, ―sensory‖ input about conditions, changes, and trends that may require association action, assesses this input against pre-defined criteria and the Living Strategy, and triggers the appropriate response. Other parts of the Sense & Respond System then provide these responses, such as: rapid operational response to an immediate need; strategic dialogue about a



complex issue requiring possible changes to Living Strategy; tactical initiative to develop a new operational capability needed to effectively respond to the threat or opportunity; gathering more detailed intelligence about the issue; or doing nothing at all. The biggest difference between a Living Strategy-based system and the typical environmental scanning system is that it involves more than structured responses to standardized research data. Most of the intelligence fed into the system comes from the members of the community through their day-to-day interactions with their own environment, as well as from focused dialogue aimed at making sense of what‘s happening in their environment. This produces intelligence that is real knowledge – information with meaningful context – far more than does typical data-oriented research. Making sense of all these intelligence inputs is done through the use of tools like assessment criteria, matrices and ―fitness landscapes.‖ Fitness landscapes are another concept borrowed from the life sciences. They create a picture of the association‘s environment as a landscape which represents the challenges and opportunities faced by the association. The assessment then involves determining how ―rugged‖ this landscape is compared to the capabilities of the association to deal with it.13 The Sense and Respond System assesses not only the sensory stimuli, but also the results of how well its response works, learning from its experience and adapting according to what it learned. This sense / assess / act cycle is another example of how Living Strategy borrows from the life sciences for its model of how a living organism like an association should act in a complex environment. The association is sensing its external environment and responding appropriately, while sensing the results of its own response and adapting according to what it learns. Living Strategy Emerges From The Engagement and Collective Knowledge Of The Entire Association Community As the Sense and Respond System diagram depicts, the core process driving Living Strategy is ongoing engagement of all members of the association community – Board, staff, and other stakeholders – in strategic dialogue around the most compelling questions facing the association. This approach stems from increasing evidence that an ―organization is the ongoing evolution of a web of conversations through which it embodies its present and evolves its future. It is in this web of conversations that knowledge is continually being created and shared. Strategic conversations provide an organic framework for using and nourishing that web intentionally as a strategic resource."14 Living Strategy emerges from this web of strategic dialogue, as well as serving as the seeds of the dialogue. Thus, Living Strategy is constantly being renewed through this continuous, cyclical dialogue process. The most important dialogue tool we use is called The World Café. World Cafés, or as we call them in this context, Living Strategy Cafés, are modeled after "European café society" — friends, colleagues and traveling strangers collectively engaged in lively,



cross-pollinating, small group conversations about the most compelling ideas and issues of the time. The Café process encourages effective questions, candid dialogue and creative thinking among the strategic thinkers by offering these same small, café-style conversations in a safe, welcoming atmosphere. The process involves: engaging everyone in dialogue around strategic questions at several different tables while scribing what emerges on the table-tops; rotating and sharing between the tables; and closing with full group sharing and synthesis. It creates meaningful connections and a flow of knowledge and participation that enriches the collective pool of wisdom around the Living Strategy or a particular sensory input or strategic issue.15 What we see emerging out of this approach are associations evolving to become living networks of connected conversations around questions that matter. In these ―living associations‖, leadership is about seeding these conversations with the right questions, hosting the ongoing dialogue, and helping the organization make sense of and take action in response to the collective intelligence that emerges from these conversations. Living Strategy Is Made Visible As Living Stories And Images Rather than embodying what emerges from these powerful strategic dialogues in ―dead‖ textual documents filled with the traditional hierarchical ―strategic planning objects,‖ Living Strategy is kept alive even when it takes written form. We do this through a combination of narrative stories and graphic images. ―The basic cognitive form in which people organize their thinking is the narrative story. Individuals, families, organizations, communities, and nations all have tales that help make sense of themselves and the world.... Dramatic storytelling is the way people learn from, and connect with, one another.‖16 At the heart of the concept of ―living stories‖ is the recognition that everyone has a personal story to contribute to the collective story -- to truly make this ―our story,‖ not just the story of a select few leaders, heroes, or experts. Another key aspect of a living story is that the story continues to grow and evolve as members of the community keep having thoughts and experiences that can shed new light on what matters most to the community. In this way, living stories can serve as the foundation for the association community, since the creation of shared meaning is the most important element of a thriving community. The graphic images are created in two ways during strategic dialogues: at each table in a Living Strategy Café, the tabletop becomes a record of the ideas that emerge out of the dialogues at that table; and a graphic recorder creates large ―mind map‖-type graphic images of the full group dialogue. “The recording stimulates creative contribution and big-picture thinking among participants, while producing an engaging record to share with others.‖17 This example is a graphic record of one of the Living Strategy dialogues from the story that follows of how the American Society for Quality is ―living its strategy.‖



A Living Strategy Story (told by Paul Borawski, Executive Director and Chief Strategic Officer of the American Society for Quality – June, 2003) I‘m a big believer in strategic planning – always have been. How else do you get agreement between the Board and staff on where the organization is headed? How else can a complex organization communicate its directional intent to hundreds of member leaders working to do their part? And what serves better than an articulated strategy as the first step in telling members and prospects what their organization is working to become. I‘ve been the Executive Director of the American Society for Quality since July of 1998 and always believed strategy enabled our growth in the late ‗80s and ‗90s. During that period, ASQ‘s membership grew from 40,000 to 134,000 and revenue from $6.5M to $42M. This helps explain why the American Society for Quality (ASQ) has dedicated a good deal of time and effort to strategic planning. In fact, we‘ve been featured in Leadership and cited by a 26 agency Federal government benchmarking project for having the ―best of‖ customer focused strategic plans. But, (there‘s always a ―but‖) there are aspects of our approach to planning that always left me wanting more.



1. Limited Stakeholder Involvement - Involvement of members and member leaders have always been limited to responding to surveys and polls. We had data. We had enough surveys to fill a four inch binder. Surveys seldom create context for those that are responding, and surveys never give you an option for probing for deeper meaning. Being overwhelmed with data, we always relied on the Strategic Planning Committee to extract meaning from the data. I never trusted our ability to do that well.

2. Limits of Two-Day Meetings - Strategic planning was historically done by the Strategic Planning Committee which typically involved half the Board, two other volunteer leaders, senior staff, and a few ―outside‖ participants. We sent them the four inch binder two weeks before the meeting and trusted that they read, understood, and synthesized the information. We dedicated two days to developing a plan and then packaged it for the Board. We could only go as far as two days would get us.

3. Constantly Changing Priorities - The strategic planning process was owned by the president-elect, after all we were developing strategy for his/her year and it was ―their‖ strategy, right? Well, only if you want a new strategic planning process and new presidential priorities for most years. In fact, I contend, if you bring a room full of people together to do strategic planning every summer, strategy will change if for no other reason than to justify the meeting.

4. Owned by Half a Board - Typically the president-elect presented the strategy to the Board several months after its development. After a 20 minute review of the plan, the Board approved the plan usually without discussion. Whose plan? Not theirs, they neither understood the plan, nor the knowledge it was built on. Well, maybe half the Board understood, because they participated in the planning process, but is half enough?

5. A Year Too Late - I never liked the idea that a plan developed in the summer was approved in the fall, for a budget developed over the winter, for approval in May and then used come July. That‘s pretty typical cycle times but always meant we were using a plan almost a year old before it was acted on.

6. For-Profit Planning Models – Most of what I‘ve read on strategic planning starts with models developed in and for for-profit businesses. I always wondered if the genesis of that model was well suited for not-for-profits. Every president-elect I‘ve worked with was steeped in the for-profit world. So, the discussion of whether other planning models were better suited for an association setting was difficult to enter.

In February 2002, ASQ‘s stage was set for change. A six-year planning cycle was coming to an end, and ASQ agreed it would refresh its view of the future through a new Futures Study. With very little selling, the new president-elect, Ken Case, agreed that he would let me search for alternative approaches to setting strategy. He agreed to



support the risk of a ―new approach‖ because we held a common view that ASQ needed new direction. Like many other associations, the end of the ‗90s had led to declines in membership and revenue. We were convinced success cannot come simply from doing what we do now better. We were convinced we needed to find new things to do. I assumed I knew how for-profits planned, and knew the customary association approaches. I set out to find out how the rest of the ―world‖ did planning. I followed 32 paths to find out how governments planned, philanthropics planned, hospitals planned, and social service organizations planned. I followed every path I could find that wasn‘t a path I had already traveled. Along the path, I talked about process; I talked about planners. Along the way I found much of the same until I called Juanita Brown. Juanita had worked with several FORTUNE 500 companies and told me she had lost faith in traditional models of strategic planning; in fact, she questioned the validity of a plan. Rather she offered a glimpse into on-going strategic discussions leading to strategic decisions and recommended someone to work with – Arian Ward. So Arian and I began talking about ―Living Strategy.‖ Time was very short, because we had already set the dates and mailed the invitations for our traditional two-day annual strategic planning meeting, but I liked what Arian was saying. I liked his experience as a strategist and knowledge manager for a large electronics firm, and his background as an anthropologist. I liked Arian‘s views on associations, and I knew what he was proposing was a vastly different approach than we were accustomed to. Arian suggested we not mail the four inch data binders to the Strategic Planning Committee. Instead, he suggested ―knowledge panels.‖ He suggested we not worry about the objective being a one page plan, but identify the most pressing strategic questions our organization needed to answer. The world café was thrown in and we were off and running – round tables, covered in blank white paper with markers and creative stuff. (Café‘s would be a topic of another article, but if you‘re interested - www.theworldcafe.com.) The knowledge panels demonstrated the capacity of people familiar with the context of the organization and equipped with data to draw out the most relevant knowledge for a group. A graphic recorder (an artist trained to capture the discussions of a meeting in text and images) began documenting the emerging wisdom of the group. Discussions of the whole (like the knowledge panels) were held in a large circle. No tables, just chairs. Work on key questions was done in café sessions composed of small groups (5-8 people) rotating between tables, engaged in 20-minute dialogues at each table. The experience was rich. Sure we had done small group work in the past, but café‘s are more than small group work. The engagement of people was remarkable and the group demonstrated what Juanita Brown had suggested, that everyone is capable of engaging in dialogue on questions of strategic importance. Wisdom comes in knowing what strategic questions to ask, and in knowing a variety of ways to use cafés. Arian has this wisdom. I have a development objective to learn from him.

http://www.theworldcafe.com/



What came from the two-day planning session were five stakes in the ground:

1) ASQ‘s role as a professional association was not fully serving the needs of the quality community. Our scope is the quality community.

2) While our vision has remained unchanged over the past 20 years, our progress towards that vision has not been as encouraging as we would all expect.

3) The Board of Directors leads in enabling change. 4) In a perfect world strategic direction would be set with the involvement of as

many stakeholders as wanted to be involved. 5) It was the Board‘s role, on behalf of, and with the voice of stakeholders, to set

direction, not the Strategic Planning Committee‘s role. These five stakes turned ASQ strategically inside out. The two-day planning session had not produced a one-page plan, as was customary, and left us with more questions than answers. For some the ambiguity was an opportunity to consider change. For others, it was the failure of facilitation to produce the required outputs. I saw it as the former. I believe that much of the progress we‘ve made since last summer was accelerated by not pressing for answers before answers emerge and by our willingness, as one ASQ past-president was fond of saying, ―living in the question.‖ Since the August session hadn‘t produced the one-page plan we typically sent to the Board in October, we faced an opportunity and another step toward ―Living Strategy.‖ Arian coached us to report our work in-process to the Board and begin engaging the Board in the strategic ―flow.‖ In characteristic style, Arian coached me to ask ―the most important strategic questions of the moment.‖ Remember that phrase and don‘t pass it off too flippantly – learning to ask THE most important questions is crucial learning. We reported the Strategic Planning Committee‘s work to the Board and asked two reflective questions. We received a trickle of responses – maybe 20% of the Board – but the questions served to turn the tide. The Board was engaging in strategy in between Board meetings. They weren‘t planning yet, but they were thinking strategically. Strategy was taking life – infant steps, but steps none the less. We followed up the questions with the announcement of a couple Board teleconference calls with a specific strategic intent. We wanted to begin dialogues on ―what strategic success would look like‖ and ―how we might measure our progress.‖ What we hoped to do with the calls was to engage the Board, keep the dialogue alive, and use this early pre-work of the Board to prepare them to use their face-to-face time to their greatest advantage. It worked. The combination of asking questions, discussing the responses, and reporting outcomes did advance the dialogue, and the variety of ways to participate provided a means for most Board members to become involved. Long before the November Board meeting, we had already achieved more involvement of the Board in strategy than ever occurred in the past. I was learning about dialogue and learning to



yield my preference for preplanned intended outcomes (control) for the richness of the Board‘s insights to inform the dialogue as it progressed. One of the Board teleconference calls went fabulously well, the other not so well. I experienced for the first time the depth of support that was available from the Board. In the aftermath of a pretty frustrating teleconference call, several Board members (without prompt) spent hours of their own weekend time trying to make sense of the information I had sent them prior to the call. Each offered their work as help and provided several different views of the information. This could never have happened within the time limitations of a Board meeting. From those views came a breakthrough in the stalemate and significant ownership of the content. Contrast the difference between the old approach of the Strategic Planning Committee completing a plan that was mailed to the Board two weeks in advance of their Board meeting, and the investment the Board now had in strategy. We were able to plan on using the Board‘s face-to-face meeting time to move their discussion forward, based on their own inputs and the benefit of their wisdom. Clearly, the Board was coming to the meeting more engaged, more prepared, and more invested than ever before. One-half of our November Board meeting was dedicated to work on strategy. It was the full Board‘s turn to experience the dialogue circle and café work. First, to visit the evolution of ASQ‘s vision: Was the vision whole? Was it consistent with their discussion on success? Then what were ASQ‘s strategic success indicators? Were strategic success indicators different than operational success measures? Were the words we chose to represent our work, while not perfect, close enough to allow us to move forward? Did we have shared understanding? Again, the engagement was wonderful. For most of the Board, the absence of a clearly defined process was okay, as was moving ahead before wordsmithing. For most of the Board, the exhilaration of a well-formed change and the possibility of a remarkably different future was palpable. Agreement of most of the Board was moving us ahead – yet everyone had opportunity to express themselves. Strategy had taken life. We were living strategy. In one café session, the Board and senior staff in groups of five to seven worked to prioritize strategic themes the Board had developed before the Board meeting. Since ASQ‘s Board is large (32), we used seven café tables, and from each café emerged a different way of prioritizing. From those different ways came remarkably similar outcomes which led the Board to have confidence in the selection of priorities. What I was learning was to replace my reliance on process with an understanding of an emergent system – the system depicted in Arian‘s earlier explanation of living strategy. I was beginning to see the flow and the various input streams. Even though I knew other inputs would be needed as we went along, I saw this work as the best our Board had ever done.



Following the November Board meeting, we continued the discussion through the Board‘s chat listserv and held periodic teleconferences to check progress and keep the dialogue alive. Participation varied but a third to half the Board regularly contributed. Between November and the Board‘s next meeting in February, our vision took shape, objectives were solidified, and strategic themes congealed. All this without the hours of group processing I would have expected. Why? Because as the group shared, the understanding grew, and the words became less critical. The Board knew what the words meant – perhaps for the first time. In February, the Board had the courage to challenge ASQ‘s membership model. In fact, they demanded a new model for their action and gave us integrating elements to use in designing the model. This fall the Board will act to enable new models for membership that will enable vesting different kinds of membership. I dare say the prospect of new member models had been on the screen for a decade, but Living Strategy and a shared understanding made the discussion possible and provided the strategic clarity needed. We‘re entering year two of Living Strategy and there‘s much more to tell with a new organizational design, a new identity, and a new role for me. In addition to being ASQ‘s Executive Director, I am also ASQ‘s Chief Strategic Officer where 50% or more of my time is spent on strategic issues. But what will we do to evolve our strategy? First, we have abandoned our summer strategic planning meeting. Strategy is the Board‘s work now. The Board works on strategy every time they get together and in between meetings. Second, we are working to increase the voice of members and other stakeholders in ―Stakeholder Dialogues.‖ We‘re planning 60 of these dialogues between now and next May where Board members will introduce stakeholders to ASQ Futures Study and Living Strategy and then our stakeholders will use the café model to let us know what they think. We‘ve had one pilot dialogue and the section chair that hosted the dialogue said, ―The café discussions are a great tool for ‗instant‘ cross-communication on many levels: catharsis, networking, idea-generation, and vertical and horizontal communication.‖ She also stated the café was ―the best ASQ meeting she had ever participated in.‖ Third, we‘ll be working to integrate what we hear from the dialogues into a ―sense and respond‖ system to use in informing and aligning our operational, tactical, and strategic flows. Living Strategy is everything I hoped for. It responds to the nagging limitations of my past experiences. It engages the Board in strategic discussion. It enables strategic change. Whether it leads to long-term success is yet to be demonstrated, but Living Strategy has rekindled my hope, and has enlivened the Board‘s relationship with each other and with staff. And did I say – Living Strategy has enabled change? Change isn‘t easy, approving change is even harder.



A Living Strategy Story – PAUL’S REFLECTIONS ON THE JOURNEY (Paul Borawski‘s update on the evolution of ASQ‘s Living Strategy – September, 2005) I would start by saying I would never voluntarily go back to traditional models of setting strategic direction. About a year into Living Strategy I attended a workshop on ―Understanding the Dynamics of Strategy‖ given by Richard Karash. Richard started the workshop with a short account of the history of strategy. He said strategic planning as we think of it began with the work of Kenneth Andrews in 1971. Remember SWOT? Since then there have been four evolutions – all moving towards a systems approach to dealing with increasing complexity and uncertainty. When did Vision make its début? Just 15 years ago. Thank you, Peter Senge. This history of strategy was a gift in that it provided a context for me to understand Living Strategy and helped me understand why the old models just didn‘t work anymore.. The second gift was provided by Adam Kahane – author of Solving Tough Problems. Adam provided a powerful tool that opened my mind to the power of dialogue and the reasons why only through dialogue can the future divert from perpetuation of the present. These two gifts, the continued encouragement of Arian Ward, and the interest Living Strategy has generated among my colleagues – have served to sustain my confidence that we are indeed on to something. You‘d like to hear that enhanced results is my encouragement. As measured by the yardsticks of revenue growth and surplus I‘d build a weak case. Yes, we‘ve reversed a couple of years of revenue setbacks, and yes we‘ve improved the bottom line – but mostly through price increases and investment returns. I can‘t attribute strategy as the reason for improved outcomes, yet. But, I‘ll take progress on both measures (revenue and bottom line) as reasons to be optimistic. Yet, I don‘t want to undersell the magnitude of change Living Strategy has initiated. Transformation is the word we used to describe what we‘ve set out to accomplish. How long does transformation take? I can‘t find the definitive answer. A better question might be – How long do you get? And, my favorite – Where would you be had you not begun the change process? We‘ve learned a great deal over the past three years, some learnings are hard, others just take hard work. Here are a few of our most important lessons... New Vision >>> New Structure The Living Strategy gave us new vision, and with new vision came a reorganization of our human resources to align with the needs of the vision. Since the vision invited significant change, the reorganization was significant. With Living Strategy came the invitation to ask the Board – How should we be governed in the 21st Century? And they responded with sweeping changes to streamline the organization and increase its agility. One of our key lessons in 10 years of anticipating the future is that the hardest thing to anticipate is the impact of the increasing rate of change. Any organization not planning



and acting on the need to become more adaptive in response to changes in the environment is losing ground. From Passive to Active In days of old a Strategic Planning Committee spent two days and delivered a plan to the Board. The Board with little time, and less capability, listened to a presentation of the strategy and generally approved the plan with little real understanding and even less ownership. It was a passive, yet predictable world. If that‘s all you want from your Board don‘t start asking them important questions. If on the other hand, you want to tap the wisdom of the Board, then start asking them important questions and providing them time to delve into those questions. You shouldn‘t be surprised when their response is to dig in. There‘s a culture change for you. And don‘t be surprised when, from the diversity of their talents and experience, comes a diversity of opinion and even conflict. Are you ready to guide a leadership body through conflict? Is your objective consensus or evolutionary transformation? Because real transformation almost never comes through consensus – it‘s just too difficult and painful for some to embrace up front. It‘s more 20/60/20 – where 20% lead the way, 20% are totally averse to change, and 60% are undecided. The key is when that 60% undecided majority have engaged in sufficient informed dialogue and personal reflection to make the shift. It‘s remarkable how quickly this can happen after hours of frustrating debate with seemingly insurmountable obstacles being thrown up. And then in a matter of minutes, enough leaders have made the shift to propel us along our path into the future. Clearly engaging in these important questions is the right thing to do, but don‘t underestimate what you‘ll learn with your leadership as you experience the shift in culture. Another major question is – what behaviors will that unwavering 20% evidence after this important decision they were so steadfastly opposed to? Don‘t be surprised if less than 100% of your leaders have the ability to work well, and to their satisfaction, in environments that ask for more than rubber stamping decisions. If you take the struggles of a few as a sign of trouble you‘ll be missing the shift towards greater involvement, greater exposure, and greater accountability. There‘s far less room to sit on the sideline. It‘s not for everybody. But you‘ll be rewarded by wisdom you knew was there that simply wasn‘t called upon before. You‘ll be rewarded with creativity that was never tapped. Just make sure you‘re ready to use it. Who Gets it, Who Doesn’t? As transformation gets underway and your excitement about the prospect of reaching for your vision grows – brace yourself for the wall. The wall isn‘t your customers and members – by and large they have applauded our efforts. The wall is what we call member leaders – the thousands of good people that serve the organization on the grass roots level. The folks that get the work done. I was surprised when movement reached them and they pushed back. Hopefully, we‘ve now finally learned enough about their needs to handle it better next time. Maybe this is all ―Change 101‖ but it caught me by surprise.



The learning for me – and it‘s an important learning – is that change is not universally embraced, even when it‘s overdue. Those affected directly by the change will want to be involved. Plan for it, provide more time for it than will probably feel comfortable. Even when you‘ve provided for broad scale involvement, don‘t assume you‘ll get 100% buy-in. Remember anger is a response to change. My best advisors told me anger would be unavoidable and it was. Don‘t be surprised when anger surfaces, but don‘t assume you‘ve failed either. From Process to Systems One of my significant learnings of the past three years is the emergence of systems thinking into my view of the world. Most of us are taught in concepts and processes and that‘s great for isolating ideas for learning. But in the real world, concepts and processes do not stand in isolation. The concepts and processes we learn interact with other concepts and processes, there are interdependencies and expected and unexpected consequences. The world is complex. Systems thinking offers tools, albeit young tools, to begin to work with this complexity. Mechanistic models – business as a collection of process machines – give way to more organic, living models. More science is needed, rather than less – it‘s just a different science than we‘ve used before. We‘ve created system views of our organization and of our strategy. From these system views we can consider whether the system sustains itself or whether it falls apart. From these system views we can differentiate the drivers of change vs. the outcomes of change. Money – revenue – for instance is an outcome. A robust body of knowledge is a driver that leads to money. This knowledge is not self evident until you do the modeling. With models you can begin to test the consequence of changes to strategy and changes to processes. Because the models are simplified versions of complex systems they will not be 100% predictive, but 30% is better than nothing. And from 30% you can make improvements that might yield predictive validity of 50%. With systems views you can identify what organizational measures are the most important – these discoveries inform your organizational scorecard. The system view uncovers leading indicators of success – which are much more powerful than the lagging indicators most of us rely on. I recently had the benefit of discussing leadership with the recently retired CEO of a large, ―household name‖ company. We were discussing how CEO‘s make decisions. My assumption was that all CEO‘s must be masters of system thinking – whether they know it or not – how else could they grapple with the enormity and complexity of the enterprises they lead? I was surprised to hear insights to the contrary. He told me that most CEO‘s don‘t think in system terms. Systems are complex and assumed to be difficult to understand. Simpler models prevail – more intuition than informed knowledge. I‘m not knocking CEO‘s, I have great admiration for their abilities. I‘m just projecting that soon systems thinking will make its way to their skill sets. The accelerating speed of change, the reality of complex global markets, and the



unstoppable opportunities of science and technology will overwhelm us all unless we develop new tools. Systems thinking is on the horizon and we‘re learning as we go. What Wins – Strategy or Momentum? I talk to some association leaders who don‘t believe in strategic planning, or strategic plans. I always wonder how they succeed. I also hear of others that have strategic plans – robust big plans that fill binders – and then gather dust on a shelf. So I‘d agree with them that planning is useless unless acted on. We are also in agreement that transformational change is not easily managed. It‘s a bit analogous to changing drivers at high speeds. You don‘t have the luxury of stopping, you probably don‘t have the luxury of even slowing down. It‘s reinvention on the run and its challenging. Keep all the balls in the air and change. Find the capacity within. And, when business as usual requires attention guess what suffers? Strategy. But that doesn‘t mean the transformation has to stop, since cultural transformation can continue in our everyday work, even if strategic transformation has to wait. So we need to create enough momentum in our day-to-day operations to sustain us in those times. My Advice – Three Years in… 1) Get some agreement with your leadership that strategic redirection will require

resource to succeed. How fast you change is a matter of how much resource is provided for the change. Sure some resource is substitutional – you publish a magazine every month, so you can substitute content of a strategic nature. But other resource needs do not come from substitution. If the addition of new resource isn‘t likely, it seems time and attention can only come from one of two sources: stop doing something you‘re currently doing (which is never easy); or be prepared for things to slow down as attention is shared between a longer list of items, and for things to be done less well than they were before. I call this a ―productivity lag.‖ From the onset I thought we‘d experience a lag. I even told my member leader bosses to expect it. But I did not quantify what the lag might be and how long it could last.

2) Be prepared to learn and adapt – as the change starts, be watchful of the early signs

and marketplace response. Don‘t expect all your changes to work and be ready to adapt when they don‘t. I heard somewhere in CEO folklore that the CEO of one of the world‘s largest banks, when asked about the pressure of needing to make right decisions all the time, debunked the myth. He said he didn‘t worry about making right decisions all the time. In fact, he assumed that 50% of his decisions would be wrong. He worried about making enough decisions to make more right ones than his competitors. So, it‘s not about being right all the time; its just as much about creating a rate of change that‘s commensurate with your marketplace needs.

3) There‘s no solace in inaction. The thing I worry about most is people‘s fear of

committing to change and their desire to hang on to what‘s always worked even through long trends show the eventual negative outcome of staying the course. Boards and other leaders need to understand that there‘s as much accountability in



not changing as there is in changing. Since the world is changing, inaction can not be a viable choice. We must change, the questions remain – in what direction, to serve who‘s vision, and to do what good? Those are questions for the Board. Without answers you don‘t have direction.

What Do You Believe About Strategy? What Is Your Personal Experience Of Strategy? We hope we have kindled your desire to investigate more deeply the possibilities that a living systems approach to strategy holds for your association, the community it supports, and for you as a leader. We would be inconsistent in our practices and incomplete in our storytelling if we didn‘t leave you with what we consider to be the core of Living Strategy (and of all dialogue) – questions that matter. What we have related here are our own beliefs and experiences. But what‘s important is what you believe and what you do as a result of what you have experienced and learned, since you‘re the one who needs to act on what you‘ve learned if any value is to come out of it for you and your association. We invite you to reflect on these questions first for yourself as a leader and then for your association as a whole, as a precursor to engaging others in meaningful dialogue around them. What does success look like to you? How comfortable are you with uncertainty and change? In the midst of high levels of uncertainty and change, how do you: Increase your chances of creating your image of success Increase your comfort level and learning while creating this success

What was your best experience of a group or organization collectively envisioning its desired future, creating strategy for realizing that vision, and working to actually make these a reality? What made it work? What enabled you to co-create successful outcomes at

each stage of this evolution? What made it such an extraordinary personal experience for you?

... for the group? What patterns, insights, and deeper learnings can you glean from this

experience that you could apply to your overall beliefs and practices around strategy?

How do you these compare to those we (the authors) gained and just related to you from our own experiences?

What are the most important questions you should be engaged in right now to create the success you envision, even in the face of large scale uncertainty and change?



1 Brown, Juanita (Whole Systems Associates, from an August 29, 2003 phone conversation with

the authors) 2 Fradette, Michael and Steve Michaud, The Power of Corporate Kinetics: Create the Self-

Adapting, Self-Renewing, Instant-Action Enterprise (New York: Deloitte & Touche Consulting Group LLC and Simon and Schuster, 1998) 3 Haeckel, Stephan H., Adaptive Enterprise: Creating and Leading Sense-And-Respond

Organizations (Boston: Harvard Business School Press, 1999) 4 Ashby, W.R., An Introduction to Cybernetics, Part Two: Variety (London: Methuen, 1956)

5 Sanders, T. Irene, Strategic Thinking and the New Science: Planning in The Midst of Chaos,

Complexity, and Change (New York: The Free Press, 1998) 6 Drucker, Peter F., Management Challenges for the 21

st Century (New York: HarperBusiness,

1999) 7 Ryan, John, www.asq.org, The American Society for Quality, August 5, 2003. Rather than

using a very long, complex web address to get to the exact page reference, go to the ASQ home page listed here, click on the ―About ASQ‖ tab, and refer to the section on that page titled, ―ASQ‘s Strategic Development: A Living Strategy.‖ 8 Wheatley, Margaret J., Leadership and the New Science: Learning about Organization from an

Orderly Universe (San Francisco: Berrett-Koehler, 1992) 9 Santosus, Megan, ―Simple Yet Complex‖ (CIO Magazine, April 15, 1998 – from an interview

with complexity researchers and authors, Roger Lewin and Birute Regine). 10

Roberts, Charlotte, with Art Kleiner, ―Five Kinds of Systems Thinking,‖ from The Dance of Change: The Challenges to Sustaining Momentum in Learning Organizations (New York: Currency Doubleday, 1999) 11

Ibid 12

Haeckel, Adaptive Enterprise 13

Fulmer, William E., Shaping the Adaptive Organization: Landscapes, Learning, and Leadership in Volatile Times, (New York: American Management Association, 2000) 14

Brown, Juanita & David Isaacs, "Conversation As A Core Business Process," The Systems Thinker, (Cambridge, MA: Pegasus Communications, Inc., Dec/96-Jan/97) 15

www.theworldcafe.com, a site hosted by The World Café Stewardship Table (which includes one of the authors, Arian Ward) for The World Café Community. 16

Tichy, Noel M., ―The Mark of A Winner,‖ from Leader to Leader: Enduring Insights on Leadership, ed. by Frances Hesselbein and Paul M. Cohen (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1999) 17

www.grove.com/services/cons_graphic_recording.html, The Grove Consultants International, August 4, 2003. ________________________________

As Executive Director of the American Society for Quality, Paul E Borawski, CAE, is responsible for the operation of ASQ headquarters with a staff of over 220 and a budget of over $46 million. As ASQ‘s Chief Strategic Officer, Paul leads their Living Strategy efforts and ensures the strategy is implemented, tracked, and kept responsive to changing environmental forces and member needs. ([email protected]) Arian Ward is CEO and principal coach/facilitator for Community Frontiers in Boulder Creek, CA. Arian has been working with ASQ since 2002 on the evolution of their Living Strategy, as well as on the organizational elements needed to support it, including ASQ‘s culture, business and communication processes, body of knowledge, communities, and membership model. Arian is a co-creator and one of the world‘s most experienced facilitators of World Cafés. ([email protected])

http://www.asq.org/

http://www.theworldcafe.com/

http://www.grove.com/services/cons_graphic_recording.html

file:///B:/!Planet%20Arian/AAA%20AW%20Articles,%20Interviews,%20Books/Living%20Strategy%20articles/[email protected]

file:///B:/!Planet%20Arian/AAA%20AW%20Articles,%20Interviews,%20Books/Living%20Strategy%20articles/[email protected]

Living Strategy: Guiding Your Association Through The Rugged Landscape Ahead

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