What is the importance of mastering strategy—and why should firms allow time for it?
Connected posed this question to two of our faculty directors: Willie Pietersen, faculty director of Creating and Executing Breakthrough Strategy; and Rita McGrath, faculty director of Leading Strategic Growth and Change.
"Most participants come to a strategy program because they recognize that it is an essential part of leading effectively," says Willie Pietersen, Professor of The Practice of Management, Columbia Business School.
"One might have other powerful processes in place, but a leader must also have a robust process for creating strategy," he continues. "Executives come to a strategy-related program to learn more about doing it well."
It's critical to distinguish between strategy and planning, Professor Pietersen says. "You cannot combine them into one process, which is what many companies do. That's a toxic mixture. Planning will kill strategy. In the program, I describe the differences between the two and discuss best practices, always making clear that one is not a substitute for the other."
Often, the reality is that "companies devolve to planning with no time for strategy," notes Rita Gunther McGrath, Associate Professor of Management, Columbia Business School. "They don't apply the same rigor to their strategy process as they do for their planning process."
But in fact, strategy is how one creates the future of an organization. When there is no clear process in place, each strategic session must begin anew. "And that means that you're not building up an organizational capability for the process," says Professor Pietersen. "It's like a champion athlete going to the Olympics without any practice at all and saying, 'I thought I would just come here and compete'."
Both Professor Pietersen and Professor McGrath ask participants in their respective programs to use personal cases and engage in interactive discussions that encourage in-depth peer feedback. "When you apply the tools and concepts to your own dilemmas, suddenly it's not a game," says Professor Pietersen. "You're not just playing at strategy; you're going to go back and apply it."
Professor Pietersen's program focuses on strategic learning—a leadership process for creating and implementing breakthrough strategies. "We teach strategic learning as the core methodology," he says. "The point I make is that you can't just go through the motions as a leader. You have to apply yourself and have the courage to make choices, to address reality. Sometimes confronting the truth is very unpleasant. But you must have the leadership abilities to do it."
Professor McGrath's program builds on strategic learning concepts, but focuses specifically on the challenges of driving growth. Growth, because it involves extending the basic capabilities of a company into new areas, is often poorly managed. "The biggest difficulty," says Professor McGrath, "is that companies try to use the same processes and tools for business-as-usual that they do for growth programs, which simply doesn't work." In the course, participants learn to use tools such as opportunity mapping and discovery driven planning to address a growth challenge facing their organizations.
These two particular strategy programs, Professor McGrath points out, "are complementary to each other and are focused on different problems. At the end of Creating and Executing Breakthrough Strategy, you will have a clear idea of how you're going from strategy today to strategy in the future. With Leading Strategic Growth and Change, you will have a crisp understanding of the requirements of growth programs and the necessary leadership tools."
Program Note:
The next session of Leading Strategic Growth and Change takes place November 1–6, 2009.
Rita McGrath, Associate Professor of Management, is fascinated by strategy under uncertainty, particularly the uncertainty associated with the introduction of new technologies and methods of production in an economy. Most recently, she is the author of Discovery Driven Growth: A Breakthrough Process to Reduce Risk and Seize Opportunity. Click here to download the first chapter. Professor McGrath's Web site is www.ritamcgrath.com.
The next session of Creating and Executing Breakthrough Strategy takes place November 15–20, 2009.
After twenty years as a CEO of multinational businesses, Willie Pietersen became a Professor of the Practice of Management in 1998. He has served as a teacher and advisor to many global and is the author of Reinventing Strategy, which offers a leadership framework for creating and implementing breakthrough strategies. Professor Pietersen's Web site is www.williepietersen.com.
For more information and 2010 dates, visit our Web site, or contact our Learning Solutions Specialists for a personal conversation: execed@columbia.edu or (212)-854-3395.