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T H I N K I N G A B O U T
S T R A T E G I C T H I N K I N G
Ned Herrmann loved to laugh, and he loved to tell a good story to make a point.At one of his seminars about the whole brain, I heard Ned tell of a business
meeting during his tenure as an HR manager at General Electric in which an
exasperated executive blurted out, What the hell does the brain have to do with
business? One can imagine that executive sitting on his hands, impatiently
listening to Ned talk about psycho-physiology when there were decisions to be
made. Ned could barely finish this anecdote before breaking into a fit of
laughter. Everything that Ned stood for in his second career as a consultant,
teacher, and founder of the Herrmann Institute might be contained in the
antithesis: Whatdoesnt the brain have to do with business?
Before we address that question, lets consider some remarkable brains of human
historySir Isaac Newtons, for example. Scholars say that in the history of
science and intellectual inquiry, a brain likeNewtons comes along every five hundred
years or so. Newtons contemporary and
sometime rival, the philosopher Gottfried
Leibniz, told the Queen of Prussia that in
mathematics there was all previous history,
from the beginning of the world, and then
there was Newton, and that Newtons was
the better half. James Gleick says that
Newton computed as most people
daydream. Biographers tell us that Newton
would sometimes awaken in the morning,
begin to get out of bed, and then sit on theedge of the bed for hours, riveted by the
thoughts and insights coursing through his
mind.
Another brain of note, to which we will turn in later chapters about strategy and
decision-making, is that of Alan Turing, one of the pioneers of computer theory.
After studying under Albert Einstein at Princeton, Turing was one of the
mathematicians who cracked the codes ofEnigma, the German secret writing
and coding machine during World War II. The Enigma machine could produce
Figure 1: Sir Isaac Newton
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a nearly infinite number of ciphers, which allowed the Germansor so they
thoughtto communicate with wireless devices without worry that the Allies
could intercept and read their messages. These days, we speak of encryption
quite a bit, but in the time of the Second World War, cryptanalysis was an
esoteric and mystifying endeavor. Like many people of genius, Turing was an
eccentric character. He was arrested in pre-war England for walking down the
street with a gas mask onit alleviated his allergies. He was known to run milesand miles to work in old flannels and a vest with an alarm clock tied with
binder twine around his waist. One colleague said he was given to long,
disturbing silences punctuated by a cackle that wracked the nerves of his
closest friends. The work Turing and his associates accomplishedusing
mathematics to crack the Enigma deviceswas so vital to the Allies eventual
triumph that it was not fully disclosed to the public until the 1970s, decades after
the war ended.
Then there is the remarkable brain of the nineteenth-century French
mathematician Henri Poincar. His work set the stage for many of the profound
theories of the twentieth century in applied mathematics, physics, and celestial
mechanicsindeed, Poincar sketched out a preliminary version of the special
theory of relativity, later fleshed out by Albert Einstein. During a period inwhich he was working hard on a vexing mathematical problem, circumstances
led Poincar to do some travel and to get his mind off of his mathematical work.
Following a whim, he decided to board a bus, just for the ride. As Poincar says,
I entered an omnibus to go to some place or other. At that moment when I put
my foot on the step the idea came to me, without anything in my former thoughts
seeming to have paved the way for it, that the transformations I had used to
define the Fuchsian functions were identical with non-Euclidean geometry.
That is, Poincar experienced a jolt from the blue, a sudden insight and answer to
his intellectual questions that seemed to come out of nowhere. We might say that
as he boarded the bus, Poincar experienced a riveting Newtonian moment.
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Figure 2: Gottfried Leibniz told the Queen of Prussia that in mathematics there was
all previous history, from the beginning of the world, and then there was Newton,and that Newtons was the better half.
Do the eccentricities and flashes of insight from these men of genius matter tothe rest of us? Yes, if we want to understand and excel at strategic thinking. If
you agree with Ned Herrmann that the brain does indeed have something to do
with business, strategy, and decision-making, lets turn to the brain itself for a
moment, in search of our own flashes of insight.
BRAIN WAVES
Scientists can tell something about whats going on in your brain with a
measurement instrument called the electroencephalogram, or EEG. This device
is a medical tool used to measure the electrical activity of the brain, via
electrodes attached to the scalp. Using this technology, brain activity has been
organized into four categories:
Brain activity measured as waves at 13 to 40 cycles per second are called beta
waves. This is the most intense activity observed in the human brain and is
characteristic of concentrated effort, as when working out a math problem.
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A somewhat more restful state, called
alpha, is indicated when brain
waves are measured at 8 to 13 cycles
per second. During a period in alpha
state, we are awake, but relaxed in a
manner you might think of as
effortless alertness. The slowestactivity, measured at one half to 4
cycles per seconds, is called delta
and is evidence that we are asleep.
This leaves a very interesting state, measured at 4 to 7 cycles per second, called
theta. If you have ever felt yourself drifting toward sleep during a dreary
business meetingperhaps hallucinating just a bit before catching yourselfyou have experienced theta. Somewhere between wakefulness and sleep, we
experience a sort of reverie that has been a fount of creative thinking since the
day the first verse dawned on the first poet.
Yes, you may well get your best ideas in the shower, while driving or jogging, or
while someone else prattles on about who knows what. The daydream-like theta
state seems to be an occasion for the brain to correct and renew itself, to form
new connections, leading to visions, new insights, and, well, creative thought.
Surely, it was the onset of theta that allowed Henri Poincars mind to generate
mathematical insight as he boarded a bus.
Aware of the treasures of the
intellect just before sleep, artists
and intellectuals alike have found
ways to tap into their theta state
in manners both benign and
dangerous. Not so long ago,people like Timothy Leary were
touting hallucinogenic drugs as
windows into the subconscious.
On a healthier track, the artist
Salvador Dalihe of the melting
clocks and strangely shaped
human figuresused to sit in a
comfortable armchair holding a serving spoon in his hand. As he would begin to
drift through the theta state toward sleep, the spoon would fall to the floor with a
Figure 4: Salvador Dali's Persistence of
Memory
Figure 3: The Four Brain States
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clang. Alarmed back to a wakeful state, Dali would immediately grab a pencil or
brush and sketch the things he had just seen during his theta state.
The mathematician Poincar, reflecting on his own thought processes, such as
the epiphany he experienced as he boarded the bus, wrote that creative thinking
involves a period of conscious work followed by a period of unconscious
work. Once insight is revealed by the unconscious, he said, conscious work isnecessary once more to put the finishing touches on an idea, rendering it into a
useful concept. The unconscious mind, said Poincar, is not purely automatic;
it is capable of discernment; it has tact,
delicacy; it knows how to choose, to divine.
What do I say? It knows better how to
divine than the conscious self, since it
succeeds where that has failed. In a word, is
not the subliminal self superior to the
conscious self?
In The Courage to Create, Rollo May
concludes that the insights we crave do not
simply come to us as a result of carefulconcentration. Rather, the brain must work
and learn, then relax a bit during the theta
state so that new connections andrealizations can be formed. I have often told
students in my Strategic Thinking workshop
that to build a truly creative work
environment people should wander around
aimlessly an hour a day, waiting for thetheta state to do its magic. This inevitably
draws laughter, as in, yeah, like thats gonna happen! But the truth is, its no
joking matter.
Still, make no mistake. Innovation, insight, and invention do not occur without
hard intellectual work. Henri Poincar said that mathematical discoveries,
small or great, are never born of spontaneous generation. They always
presuppose a soil seeded with preliminary knowledge and well prepared by
labour, both conscious and subconscious.
Figure 5: Henri Poincare's
mathematical solution came to him
in a flash of sudden and unexpectedinsight
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THE GEOGRAPHY OF THE BRAIN
Most of what we know about the human brain we have learned in the past
handful of decades. In the 1960s, Dr. Roger Sperry showed through his
physiological research that the left and right hemispheres of the brain perform
distinct and specialized functions. Today, Dr. Sperrys insights have becomecommon knowledge. It is not at all unusual to see an advertising campaign
(theres that word again!) [campaign is defined in chapter 1] showing how our
right brain feels about an intoxicating new product, and how our left brain
truly appreciates the logic associated with the choice of that same product.
In his 2003 book, Looking for Spinoza, the respected neurologist AntonioDamasio shows that normal decision-making uses two complementary paths
through the brain. In Path A, we conjure up relevant aspects of a situation,
options for action, and logical thinking about possible outcomes. In this manner,
we use our rational faculties to come to reasoned conclusions. Path B runsparallel with Path A and involves our emotional and visceral reactions to a
situation. On this path, prior emotional experiences to a situation are activated
and, in a fashion, relived or re-experienced. Often, the gut reactions arisingfrom these emotions lead directly to the decisions we make, whether or not theyare consistent with the rational conclusions resulting from Path A.
Damasios conceptualization of human thought
processes is consistent with our developing
understanding of how the whole brain is used
to form impressions: the left side of the brain
processes information in a logical, sequential,
and orderly manner. In tandem, the right side of
the brain contributes to perceptions through
abstract visioning (in the cerebrum) and
emotional reactions (in the limbic system.) Tofully understand the ways people form and
maintain impressions and perceptions, a whole
brain approach is necessary.
Ned Herrmann has described the brain as
consisting of four independent quadrants, each
of which is highly specialized. The quadrants
derive from the fact that both the cerebral
(upper) and the limbic (lower) areas are
Figure 6: Four distinct
areas of the physiologicalbrain are represented
abstractly as Quadrants
A,B,C & D
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separated into left and right sides. The limbic system is located generally in the
inner or lower area of the brain and includes a number of important structures
such as the hypothalamus, hippocampus, amygdala, olfactory bulb, and
thalamus. The image at left depicts the four quadrants of the physiological brain,
which Herrmann calls A, B, C, and D, as four quadrants of a circle, color-coded
for easy reference.
Lets return to the electroencephalogram, or EEG machine. Remember, this
device is a medical tool used to measure the electrical activity of the brain, via
electrodes attached to the scalp. With an EEG, technicians can isolate the
location of brain activity related to different types of thinking. For example,
show a subject a sad movie, and parts of the right limbic area of the brain will
light up with activity as the viewer experiences strong emotion. Have her do
some math, and the left cerebral area will fire up.
Figure 7: Depiction of the Herrmann Four-Quadrant
Model showing color coding
In Herrmanns model, the left cerebrum is the A quadrant and is color-codedblue. A-quadrant thinking is characterized as logical, analytical, fact based, and
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quantitative, as shown in the graphic above. The green B quadrant represents the
left limbic area, where brain processing is characterized by a focus on detail,
organizing, planning, and sequential thinking. Right brain processing consists
of the red C quadrant, the seat of feelings and emotions, and the yellow D
quadrant, or the upper right brain, the seat of holistic or big picture thinking.
BRAIN DOMINANCE
Ned Herrmann observed that as individuals we tend to have preferred modesof thinking. That is, one individual tends to perceive the world more through an
upper left-brain lens, or filter, while another individual tends to view things from
a lower right-brain orientation.
Using the Herrmann methodology, people can be assessed and assigned a score
of a one, two, or three for each of the four quadrants. A 1 indicates a dominant,
or preferred, area, a 2 indicates
a secondary preference, while a
3 indicates an area of
avoidance. My profile? Formy four quadrantsA, B, C,
and D, respectivelyI am a
2311, indicating a strong
preference for seeing the world
through a right-brain filter as
well as a tendency to avoid
details and sequential
endeavors, or what I call thetedious. Does this profile
cause me problems as I strive to
keep order in my world? You
bet. Does it cause me to think and write about business strategy and to viewworld history as a fount of valuable metaphor as we make decisions of every
sort? Evidently.
A useful way to think about brain dominance is to consider your handedness.
You probably did not decide to be right or left handed; you just prefer one
hand or the other. You were born that way, and we can say that your handedness
is innate. Still, you can use your off-hand, just as we right-brain-dominant folks
can call on our left brain to process information when we so desire. Nonetheless,
Figure 8: Ned Herrmann
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people are generally predisposed to a certain style of perceiving and interacting
with the world at a very young age.
For this reason, it is generally best to help people discover their preferences and
recognize their weaknesses. It is much easier and more natural to leverage our
strengths than to battle our weaknesses. That is, it is better to find areas of work
and endeavor that come naturally to you than to force fit yourself into situationsin which you will struggle.
Figure 9: Graphic on left shows the typical brain profiles of representativeoccupations. The graphic on the right shows that males and females tend to vary on
the A and C quadrants, but not on the B and D quadrants.
STRATEGY CREATION AS A WHOLE-BRAIN PROCESS
The strategistis one who is concerned about the future of his or her personal,
family, or organizational life and spends time considering possible directions
upon which to set forth. We are all strategists.
Strategy is, simply a plan that precedes action; it is the chosen direction, or set of
directions, we follow in our quest toward the fulfillment of our larger mission orpurpose.
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Strategic thinking, on the other hand, is a particular mode of thought that keeps
us engaged in understanding aspects of our environment that may affect our
efforts to follow the chosen direction. To formulate strategy, the strategist must
engage the right cerebral D quadrant, but formulation alone is insufficient.
Conceiving strategy and bringing it to fruition is a whole brain process.
In the movie Working Girl, Tess, the lead character played by Melanie Griffith,comes up with a creative idea for how to accomplish a corporate merger, but as a
mere working girl she is not in a position to get her idea heard. Katherine, the
villainess of the story played by Sigourney Weaver, does have a position of
influence and puts Tesss idea forth as her own. In the pivotal scene of the
movie, Tess gains access to the company CEO (through Harrison Fords kind
assistance) and tells him how she conceived of the idea: she was reading a
gossip column in a tabloid newspaper, turned to the business pages, and saw a
connection of ideas that she realized would apply to the strategic situation
confronting the company.
When confronted, Katherine cannot account for how the solution occurred to her.
She has no epiphanal moment to share. She cannot point to any preparation of
mind or any trigger or stimulus that would plausibly lead to the conception of anidea. The lack of a trail of thoughts proves that the idea was not hers. The
wise CEO recognizes this, gives Tess a desirable job, and bumps Katherine out
of the company as the movie moves to a satisfying Hollywood ending. Thatending is believable because the notion of a trail of thoughts as a prerequisite for
an ideaa period of preparation followed by a burst of inspirationis consistent
with the way people replace old thinking with new.
Strategy-making begins with an idea, and yet many articles and books about
strategy do not address the question of how to generate ideas. The typical tome
provides a new way of analyzing and understanding the strategic situation
without showing ways to conceive of new and profitable directions to take. An
old Steve Martin gag comes to mind. You say to me, Steve, how can I be a
millionaire and not pay taxes? . . . Its simple, first, get a million dollars.
Unfortunately, the little step at the beginning can be the hardest part. Tounderstand just how to derive ideas for solutions to strategic problems, lets look
at the creative process itself.
The graphic below depicts Ned Herrmanns steps in the process of idea
generation. These steps illustrate the variety of thinking modes necessary to
generate and nurture useful ideas. Once interest in a problem is established,
preparation is by and large a left-brain, analytical thought process. Before the
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moment of illumination can arrive, though, the brain needs to let go of
concentrated effort, engaging the less structured thinking of the right brain in a
manner that Herrmann calls incubation. As we have seen, during a relaxed theta
brain state, new connections can be formed. Once illumination, such as the flash
of insight as experienced by the mathematician Poincar or the working girl
Tess, has occurred, the left brain must take over to verify, or evaluate, the
efficacy of the idea at hand.
Interest ApplicationVerificationIlluminationIncubationPreparation
Becomingaware of the
problem
Making thesolution
happen
Selecting the
solution
Generating
ideas
Sensing
possibilities
Defining the
problem
Creating strategy, like any important endeavor, involves the whole brain. That
is, a variety of thinking styles are engaged in the strategy-making process. But,
as with soup ingredients, some modes of thought are more prominent in the mix
than others. I use the term strategic thinking to describe the big picture, D-
quadrant thinking one uses in considering the strategic situation (SS)the
elements of the Strategic Environment (SE) and Strategic Intent (SI).Nonetheless, the making of strategy requires engagement of the other three
domains of thought. Using the Herrmann system, we will consider, in turn, all
four brain quadrants as they relate to strategy. The following graphic shows how
the four processes of strategyformulating, articulating, executing, and
evaluatingalign with the four brain quadrants.
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Following the circle to the right, we can view the process of strategy-making as a
sequence of formulating, articulating, executing, and evaluating strategy. Ofcourse, the process is not so sequential, as each part of the process goes on
simultaneously, with a variety of thinking loops going on at once. For example,
a simple loop of formulating to evaluating and back again is constantly in motion
as ideas occur to us and are immediately subjected to our own judgment andevaluation as to worthiness for future execution.
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This yin and yang of the right and left brain, with ideas popping up in the former
and critiqued in the latter, brings to mind the notion of dialectics expounded by
the philosopher G.W.F. Hegel: Every condition of thought or of thingsevery
idea and every situation in the worldleads irresistibly to its opposite, and then
unites with it to form a higher or more complex whole. The notion of dialectics
was foreshadowed by Empedocles and embodied in the golden mean of
Aristotle, who wrote that the knowledge of opposites is one. The geographyof the brain provides a new way of thinking about the old notion of thesis to
antithesis to synthesisthat is, right brain to left brain to whole brain.
Developing a working strategy for an organization, then, requires a variety of
thinking styles, including both right- and left-brain processes. After
interviewing a variety of well-known leaders, Warren Bennisperhaps the most
eminent student of leadership of our timewrites inOn Becoming a Leaderthat
I was struck again and again by the fact that, whatever their occupations, they
relied as much on their intuitive and conceptual skills as on their logical and
analytical talents. These are whole-brained people, capable of using both sides
of their brain (p. 103).
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FORMULATING STRATEGY CALLS FOR STRATEGIC THINKING
C.K. Prahalad and Gary Hamel have suggested that strategic thinkers do three
things:
1. They think about the environment around them.
2. They think about the future.
3. They engage others in doing the same, resulting in a deeply shared,well-tested view of the future.
Biographers of Napoleon Bonaparte talk about his ability to size up a situation
with a single coup d'oeil, (pronounced koo-DOY), meaning a stroke of the eye
or glance. Napoleon
was so knowledgeable
about his strategic
situationthe landscape,
the enemy, available
technology, similar
situations from the
pastthat he could
understand and respond
quickly to ever-changing
circumstances. In the
first Gulf War, in 1990,
Norman Schwarzkopf
took advantage of the
latest technological
advances to obtain real
time data on the
strategic situation inKuwait and Iraq, which
enhanced his ability to
understand the strategic environment and think strategically.
In addition to paying attention to current conditions, the strategic thinker is
oriented toward the future. He or she is intent driven, looking at the dynamics
of the competitive environment with purposes and desired outcomes in mind.
With strategic intent in mind, the strategic thinker also understands that strategy
must emanate or diffuse to others. In preparation for the next phase
Figure 10: Napoleon Bonaparte was said to have thecoup d'oeil -- an intuitive grasp of the strategicenvironment
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articulation of strategythe strategist initiates conversations, beginning to
activate the group mind to refine and craft strategy.
Of course, there is debate among experts as to what exactly constitutes strategic
thinking. Michael Porter, perhaps the most widely cited expert on organizational
strategy, says that strategic thinking rarely occurs spontaneously. As if to
prove his point, Porter provides a dry, deliberate, and distinctly unspontaneousmethodological approach to the quest for competitive advantage. Other eminent
strategy theorists have argued just the oppositethat strategy-making can also
be thought of as a creative process, as rich in spontaneity and magic as any other
art. After all, even mathematicians like Poincar and Newton held that their most
prized insights burst in part from spontaneous thought. Certainly, nothing about
the field of strategy is any more formulaic and logical than that of mathematics.
Henry Mintzberg argues that organizational strategy is often emergent. That is,
we do not arrive step-by-step at the answers to strategic questions as we do at theresult of a math equation. Rather, strategy emerges and changes as the strategist
observes the world and reflects upon the dynamics of the competitive
environment.
In articulating his pin-prick model, Evan Dudik suggests that having a single,
straightforward strategic plan can be debilitating. He argues that overly
specific strategic plans limit an entity to one particular set of attempts and
outcomes, which is tantamount to putting all your eggs in one basket. Rather,
Dudik suggests, a variety of strategic initiatives should be pursued as a mass of
pin-pricks, rather than following one favored strategy, striking in one forceful
but clumsy blow. Just as a general might authorize a series of skirmishes to
identify weak points in an enemys position, so might the strategist instigate a
variety of exploratory actions, monitoring each for signs of a larger opportunity.
In this manner, rather than nurturing one big idea, the strategist maintains a
portfolio of ideas, each of which has some chance of becoming a strategic
breakthrough Abraham Lincoln recognized the importance of keeping his
options open. He said, My policy is to have no policy. I shall not surrender this
game leaving any available card un-played. That is to say, Lincoln reservedleeway for events to dictate strategya notion now known as emergent strategy
(Sandburg, The War Years, p. 200).
The ability to keep options open, to avoid locking in on a particular approach, is
influenced by ones brain dominance and other forces of personality.
Confronted with an important strategic decision during the 1998 NFL player
draft, the San Diego Chargers employed Jonathan Niednagel for his
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psychological insight. That year, the Chargers owned the right to choose any
player on the board from the pool of players leaving the college ranks. The
top two players that year were Peyton Manning of the University of Tennessee
and Ryan Leaf of the University of Oregon. Using a personality instrument
known as the Myers Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI), Niednagel found that
Manning had what is called an ESTP profile, while Leaf was an ESTJ. The
difference between the two men, according to the MBTI, boiled down to Pversus J. In Myers Briggs parlance this is Perceiving versus Judging, or what
wed more commonly call
spontaneity and flexibility as
opposed to structure.
With this information in hand,
Niednagel offered a strong and
unwavering prediction. While
there was not much difference
between the two quarterbacks
in terms of physical ability,
Manning would be far more
suited to the NFL game.Mannings proclivity toward
the perceiving (P) end of a
psychological continuum meant
that he would be able to scan
the football field for fast
developing options and make appropriate snap judgments. He possessed the
glance, the coup d'oeil. Niednagel predicted that Leaf, on the other hand,
would be shackled by his judging (J) personality profile. He could be expected
to lock in on a particular receiver downfield and would not be able to perceive
the other options available to him as each football play developed. Manning was
selected first overall in the 1998 NFL Draft. Ryan Leaf was the second pick that
year, going to the San Diego Chargers, who ignored Niednagels warnings.
Subsequent events validated Niednagels analysis. Peyton Manning, of course,went on to a Hall-of-Fame-caliber career in the NFL. Ryan Leaf struggled
through a brief and unsuccessful career as an NFL quarterback.
The story of the two quarterbacks illustrates the extent to which thinking style
affects the ability to make quick tactical decisions on the field and serves as a
fitting analogy to long-term, strategic decision-making. Locking in on options
following through on specific, carefully orchestrated strategic planscan indeed
limit a strategist in pursuit of long-term mission and desired outcomes.
Figure 12: Peyton Manning possesses the coup
d'oeil, as measured by the Myers-Briggs TypeIndicator
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Strategic thinking, then, is characterized by openness to new and different ideas.
And one way to generate new and different perspectives on strategic situations is
through the use of metaphor, or its close relative analogy, perhaps the most
advanced form of human thinking. As Aristotle said in Poetics, the greatest
thing by far is to be a master of metaphor. It is a sign of genius, since a good
metaphor implies an intuitive perception of the similarity in dissimilars.
In their Harvard Business Review article entitled How Strategists Really
Think, Giovanni Gavetti and Jan W. Rivkin show that reasoning by analogy
plays a major role in the thinking of successful strategists. As an example, these
writers point to Intel chairman Andy Groves story of how he came up with an
important business strategy. Attending a management seminar, Grove heard the
story of how fledgling mini-mills in the steel industry began in the 1970s to
offer a low-end productinexpensive concrete-reinforcing bars known as rebar.
Establishing market share with the low-end products, these steel companies then
began to migrate up the hierarchy of products toward the higher-end, more
lucrative steel products. U.S. Steel, which had ceded the low-end products to the
smaller and seemingly insignificant players, was caught unawares by the
companies attacking the market for their core business and lost market share
over a number of years.
An epiphany struck Andy Grove as he sat in that management seminar, thinking
about the steel industry. Using what Gavetti and Rivkin call analogicalthinking, Grove saw that Intel was sitting in a similar situation to that of U.S.
Steel in the 1970s. Intel had theretofore leaned toward ceding low-end computer
chips to niche players, a strategy that, Grove now realized, would put Intel in a
dangerous situation. He began to see low-end computers as digital rebar, a
metaphorical image that helped him in articulating his strategy to Intel
management. If we lose the low end today, Grove said, we could lose the
high end tomorrow. As a result of this thinking, and the deliberations that
followed, Intel redoubled its efforts to market the low-end Celeron processor
for low-end personal computers.
The opportunity to engage in metaphorical or analogical thinking exists for anyone of us at any time. We all walk around with a vast library of experiences
from work, education, hobbiesto draw upon as we engage in strategic
thinking. The trick is in becoming more open to seemingly unrelated thoughts
and allowing appropriate time for brain processing in the theta mode.
To engage in strategic thought, you must think and reflect on the big pictureon
the diverse players and forces in your environment. Think about the future. Use
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your right brain for intuition and wisdom. As Isaac Newton said truth is the
offspring of silence and meditation.
ARTICULATING STRATEGY CALLS FOR EMOTIONALLY
INTELLIGENT THINKING
To establish direction, a strategy must be articulated to others. To become a
strategy in action, strategy must emanate from the strategic thinker. This
element of strategy-making, often ignored, was reinforced by Prahalad & Hamel
in their maxim that the strategist understands the environment and the future, and
then spends quality time engaging others in understanding strategy.
Communicating, expressing, teaching, articulatingthese actions require a
special interpersonal and intrapersonal intelligence that is characteristic of right-
limbic C-quadrant thinking.
In Leaders, Warren Bennis and Burt Nanus conclude, Leaders articulate and
define what has previously remained implicit or unsaid; then they invent images,metaphors, and models that provide a focus for new attention. By so doing, they
consolidate or challenge prevailing wisdom. In short, an essential factor inleadership is the capacity to influence and organize meaning for the members of
the organization.
Perhaps the ultimate avatar of saying the unsaid and organizing meaning as
an act of leadership was Abraham Lincoln, who used his deep understanding of
the emotional needs of the American people to graft his vision of the future ontotheirs. He developed an accurate sense of the mood of the people though
constant, eye-to-eye encounters. As one biographer said, wherever the soldiers
were, there would be Lincoln . . . he always had a kind word for [the soldiers].Frequently telling them his vision of America and how important they were in
achieving victory (Phillips). Lincoln, who made countless visits to hospitals
and funerals, displayed a remarkable degree of compassion and caring, which inturn inspired loyalty and commitment to his vision.
Lincolns deep empathy for the people of America motivated him to agonize
over finding just the right words to articulate his vision of the future. Gary Wills
points out in Lincoln at Gettysburg: The Words that Remade America that in
Lincolns three-minute Gettysburg address, he was able, through a careful choice
of words, to reestablish the meaning that Americans attribute to the Constitution.
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Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent a
new nation conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men are
created equal. This brief introductory sentence encapsulates what we now
consider the reason for the American Civil Warfreedom and equality for all
people. Gary Wills and other historians tell us, though, that until Lincoln spoke
these words, these ideals were notwhat the war was about. At the time, many
believed they were fighting for a way of life, with such issues as the dynamicsof the Southern economy also at stake. At the 1864 gathering at Gettysburg,
Lincoln knew that he needed to articulate what he believed the nation was
fighting for, and he didso effectively that now, Wills says, the Civil War
means, to most Americans, what Lincoln wanted it to mean. Drawing on
language from the Declaration of Independence about all men being equal, he
elevated that notion to a single, supreme proposition about which we must all
agree. Wills says that by accepting the Gettysburg Address, its concept of a
single people dedicated to a proposition, we have been changed. Because of it,we live in a different America.
Lincolns ability to resonate with the
peopleto empathize and inspireis
evidence that genius takes many forms. IsaacNewton, in sharp contrast to Abraham
Lincoln, offers ample evidence that people
with high IQ do not necessarily possess a
high aptitude for empathy or even self-
awareness. Despite his vaunted brainor
perhaps because of itNewton evidently
missed out on much of the joy and pleasure
of life. He never married or became
emotionally close to another person. Despite
living for 84 years on the small island and
country of England, curiosity never moved
him to travel to the sea to observe with his
own eyes the way the tides moved in
accordance with his theories of mass andmotion. Throughout much of his life,
moreover, Newton was little interested in
sharing or publishing the fruits of his
thinking and investigation. He kept many of
his findings secret. Eventually, Newton did publish hisPrincipia Mathematica,
which introduced The Calculus and changed the field of mathematics forever.
Figure 13: Lincolns ability to
resonate with the peopletoempathize and inspireis
evidence that genius takes many
orms.
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It is apparent, though, that he was motivated to do so more by the desire to mark
his place in intellectual history than to contribute to the good of humanity.
Two men of geniusAbraham Lincoln and Isaac Newtonso profoundly
different, each from the other. We may ask, how are we to understand the
differences between their two ways of thinking and perhaps put both to use?
In 1995, Daniel Goleman published a book called EmotionalIntelligence, drawing considerable attention to a mode of intelligence far
different from the cognitive, calculating intelligence of Isaac Newton. Goleman
gives us a language to talk about the strengths and weaknesses of people like
Newton and Lincoln. Evidently, Newton had a high IQ but, unlike Lincoln, a
low EQ, or Emotional Intelligence Quotient. In a nutshell, people with a high
EQ display two primary traits: first, they are aware and in control of their own
emotional worlds; second, they are empathic and concerned about the feelings
and emotions of others.
In a seminal work calledFrames of Mind: The Theory of Multiple Intelligences,
Howard Gardner delineates a variety of forms of intelligence not measured by a
typical IQ test. Relevant here are two forms of intelligence that he called the
personal intelligencesthe inward-facing intrapersonal intelligence and the
outward perspective ofinterpersonal intelligence..
Gardner defines intrapersonal intelligence as access to ones own feeling life
ones range of affects or emotions: the capacity instantly to effect
discriminations among these feelings and, eventually, to label them, to enmesh
them in symbolic codes, to draw upon them as a means of understanding andguiding ones behavior. Interpersonal intelligence, by contrast, is the ability to
notice and make distinctions among other individuals and, in particular, among
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their moods, temperaments, motivations, and intentions. In a nutshell,
interpersonal intelligence concerns empathy and social skill, whereas
intrapersonal intelligence concerns self-awareness, self-regulation, and
motivation. These two domains of the intellect line up nicely with Golemans
notion of EQ. The following tables, drawn from Golemans work, explicate the
qualities of each of these forms of intelligence.
Interpersonal Intelligence
Effectiveness in leading change
Persuasiveness
Expertise in building and leading
teams
Proficiency in managing
relationships and building networks.
An ability to find common groundand build rapport.Social Skill
Expertise in building andretaining talent
Cross-cultural sensitivity
Service to clients and customers
The ability to understand the
emotional makeup of other people.
Skill in treating people according to
their emotional reactions.Empathy
HallmarksDefinition
Effectiveness in leading change
Persuasiveness
Expertise in building and leading
teams
Proficiency in managing
relationships and building networks.
An ability to find common groundand build rapport.Social Skill
Expertise in building andretaining talent
Cross-cultural sensitivity
Service to clients and customers
The ability to understand the
emotional makeup of other people.
Skill in treating people according to
their emotional reactions.Empathy
HallmarksDefinition
Intrapersonal Intelligence
Strong drive to achieve
Optimism, even in the face of
failure
Organizational commitment
A passion to work for reasons that go
beyond money or status. A propensity
to pursue goals with energy and
persistence.Motivation
Trustworthiness and integrity
Comfort with ambiguity
Openness to change
The ability to control or redirect
disruptive impulses and moods.
The propensity to suspend judgment-
to think before acting.
Self Regulation
Self-confidence
Realistic self-assessment
Self-deprecating sense of humor
The ability to recognize and
understand your moods, emotions,
and drives, as well as their effect on
others.
Self Awareness
HallmarksDefinition
Strong drive to achieve
Optimism, even in the face of
failure
Organizational commitment
A passion to work for reasons that go
beyond money or status. A propensity
to pursue goals with energy and
persistence.Motivation
Trustworthiness and integrity
Comfort with ambiguity
Openness to change
The ability to control or redirect
disruptive impulses and moods.
The propensity to suspend judgment-
to think before acting.
Self Regulation
Self-confidence
Realistic self-assessment
Self-deprecating sense of humor
The ability to recognize and
understand your moods, emotions,
and drives, as well as their effect on
others.
Self Awareness
HallmarksDefinition
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As Ned Herrmanns frustrated associate might have said, what the hell does
emotional intelligence have to do with business? Does it really matter? A
number of research efforts in recent years have pointed to the importance of
understanding emotional intelligence in the business or organizational
environment. A recent review article by Cary Cherness of Rutgers
University provides nineteen case studies that show how emotional
intelligence contributes to the bottom line in work situations. For example:
The US Air Force found they were three times more likely to selectsuccessful recruiters when senior officers use EQ as a screening and
selection tool for hiring.
A study of 300 top-level executives from 15 global companies showedthat EQ accurately differentiates outstanding from average performers.
A competency study involving 200 companies showed that cognitiveability and technical skill accounted for one third of the difference
between mediocre and high performers, whereas emotional competence
accounted for the other two thirds.
The Center for Creative Leadership has found that theprimary causes ofcareer derailment among executives are related to EQ.
There are myriad ways that a strategist might call on emotionally intelligent
thinking for positive effect. An accurate understanding of our own emotional
state is helpful in avoiding several traps in decision-making, including snap
decisions based on short-term emotional reactions to events. Since strategic
decision-making is often a group process, a strategist must also be able to gauge
the emotions of others. We will deal with several impediments to effective
group decision-making in chapter X.
EXECUTING STRATEGY CALLS FOR DETAIL AND SEQUENTIAL
THINKING
It is tempting to assume that Herrmanns B quadrant (color-coded in his
model as green) is not related to thinking about strategy and its formulation.After all, the limbic left brain is the seat of sequential thinking and detail, a far
cry from the big picture thinking we associate with strategy. Such an
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assumption, though, limits our ability to craft strategy. Indeed, any important
endeavor requires a truly whole-brain approach.
Consider the art of Michelangelo. To create the famous ceiling of the Sistine
Chapel, Michelangelo had to call on right-brain processing to develop his grand
vision. But he also had to execute his vision. That is, Michelangelo had to tap
into his left-brain capacity for detail in order to finish his work of art. I imaginethat there were days of tedium as he persisted in bringing his vision to life. In
the same manner, conceiving, articulating, and following through on a grand
strategy requires the use of ourwhole brains, including B-quadrant thinking.
Figure 14: Michelangelo needed to call on his "whole-brain" to
accomplish his vision at the Sistene Chapel
Larry Bossidy, the veteran chairman of Honeywell and CEO of Allied Signal,
was struck that among the shelves of business books published each year on
strategy and leadership none focused on the subject that obsesses successful
executives: the essential grunt work of delivering results.Execution, Bossidysaid, is "the missing link between aspirations and results. It is a systematic
process of rigorously discussing hows and whats, questioning, tenaciouslyfollowing through, and ensuring accountability.
Great and significant deeds are accomplished only through the mastery of a vast
sea of detail. As a strategist, one must identify the most important details in a
given operation and make sure that these details are well monitored and
managed. In his press briefing after the Gulf War of 1990-1991, Norman
Schwarzkopf praised the thousands of individuals who had managed his
logistical operation. In the largest military logistics operation in history,
America moved 550,000 troops to the Middle East in a short period of weeks
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and months; seven million tons of supplies were shipped; 122 million meals
were served; 32,000 tons of mail were delivered. By definition, a strategist
keeps his or her eyes on the big picture, not the details. Nonetheless, an effective
strategist must understand the necessity of detail-oriented, sequential thinking in
executing the strategy.
Here are some things a strategist can do to hone B-quadrant abilities and bridgethe gap between vision and result:
1. Identify which details are critical to the execution of your strategy.Manage and monitor these details.
2. Identify the people who can manage these details and delegateappropriately.
3. Understand the basics of project management.
The distinction between laying out a strategy and getting it done is often cited as
the difference between leaders and managers. While the leader, like Abraham
Lincoln, is one who determines the right thing to do, the manager is one whomakes sure the organization does things right. As Warren Bennis says, The
difference may be summarized as activities of vision and judgment
effectiveness versus efficiencydirection versus routine.
EVALUATING STRATEGY CALLS FOR SYSTEMS THINKING
There is no such thing as failure; there is only feedback.
One of the Laws of Neurolinguistic Programming
Explicating his view of strategy as an emergent process, Evan Dudik puts forth
the notion of the strategist as experimenter. Following his pinprick model, welaunch a number of strategic initiatives as would an experimentertry
something, watch for results, adjust, and try again. In classic experimental
design, the experimenter generates a hypothesis about cause and effectand then
puts the hypothesis to test. Clayton Christensen calls the hypothesis about acause and effect relationship a theory. He says that building a useful theory
involves three steps:
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1. Carefully observe, describe, and measure phenomena.
2. Group observations into distinct categories, distinguished byrecognizable attributes.
3. Develop a theory that explains how a certain set of attributes leads
to a certain resultthat is, articulate a theory of cause and effect.
For the strategist, a useful theory provides a way of understanding the dynamics
of the complex strategic environment, recognizable indicators or warning signals
of change, and agreed-upon means of dealing with change.
In his influential book The Fifth Discipline, Peter Senge refers to hypotheses
about cause and effect as mental models. To Senge, mental models are deeply
ingrained assumptions, generalizations, or even pictures and images that
influence how we understand the world and how we take action (Senge 1990:
8). Mental models are useful and, indeed, unavoidable. By nature, we form
beliefs about cause and effect. One person may form a mental model that says
people are best moved toward excellent work by the promise of monetary
rewards. Someone else may hold to the mental model that the best determinant
of good and diligent work is the intrinsic satisfaction of the effort itself. Both of
these mental models can be stated in cause and effect terms. A good mental
model is disconfirmable. That is, we can put models and hypotheses to the test
through experimentation or simply through continued observation of events and
results.
To put theories or mental models to work, we use an approach referred to as
systems thinking. While strategic thinking involves consideration of the big
picture, systems thinking begins when we consider a real-world phenomenon
and seek to understand the cause and effect relationships characteristic of a
system. A systems thinker wonders how an organization works, looking at the
parts as dynamic aspects of the whole. It is the interrelationships of the elementsof an organization that interests the systems thinker.
While D-quadrant (big picture) thinking, as we have seen, is critical to
determining the direction to take toward the future, wed have no means of
judging the efficacy of one possible strategy over another without A-quadrant(logical, analytical, fact-based, and quantitative) thinkingwhich is to say,
systems thinking. To formulate a workable strategy, the strategist must
understand the connections among the constituent parts of the system, must
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understand how internal organizational capabilities dovetail with the dynamics
of the external environment.
Once a theory of cause and effect is established, then, the strategist learns to
observe and utilize feedback from the environment. Feedback is a term that
grew out ofsystems theory, also known as cybernetics, which emerged in the
1940s and 1950s.
The practice of systems thinking starts with understanding a simple conceptcalled "feedback" that shows how actions can reinforce or counteract
(balance) each other.
Ultimately, systems thinking simplifies life by helping us to see the deeperpatterns lying behind the events and the details. [check reference]
Though a mental modela hypothesis about cause and effectprovides a useful
way of understanding the dynamics and working of the world around us, blind
adherence to entrenched models can be dangerous. Once we close our eyes to
disconfirming evidence, once we fail to see the weaknesses of our assumptions
about cause and effect, we have failed as systems thinkers. History, of course, is
replete with examples of people adhering stubbornly to old paradigms despite
overwhelming evidence that a new way of thinking has become necessary.
Mental models become the frames through which we view the world. We attend
to what is inside our frame, oblivious sometimes to what occurs outside our
frames, which can lead to dangerous blind spots. Frames can be useful insofar as
they direct our attention toward the information we seek. But they can also
constrict our peripheral vision, keeping us from noticing important information
and, perhaps, opportunities. Once liberating, mental models can become
shackles.
As an illustration of the way in which mental models and frames can get out ofhand, consider Donald Schons concept of a generative metaphor. A generative
metaphor is an implicit metaphor that can cast a kind of spell on a community.
All solutions are understood in terms of the implicit metaphor. Some work
cultures, for example, use a sports analogy as their generative metaphor,
ubiquitously describing events in sports language and casting solutions as game
plans. A generative metaphor like this can be healthy, but it can also restrict
creativity and problem-solving, since the team may miss out on ideas and
options not endemic to the metaphorical world at hand.
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At times, an over-used generative metaphor can lead to a group dynamic known
asgroupthink, which we will consider in Chapter X. When cultural propensities
like this become problematic, leaders can stimulate positive organizational
change by introducing new and useful generative metaphors as they
communicate with others. The new metaphor can provide people with a lens
through which to see things anew and lead to positive change in the work
atmosphere and business results.
Perhaps the most important use of systems thinking in modern organizations is in
the pursuit of what Donald Schon, Chris Argyris, Peter Senge, and others have
called a learning organization. Schon defines a learning organization as
systems capable of bringing about their own continuing transformation. Senge
says that learning organizations are organizations where people continually
expand their capacity to create the results they truly desire, where new and
expansive patterns of thinking are nurtured, where collective aspiration is set
free, and where people are continually learning to see the whole together.
CHAPTER CONCLUSION
In this chapter, we have explored the mental tools of the strategist. To enable
good strategic decision-making, the strategist should:
Understand the conditions necessary for creative thinking, includingpreparation, incubation, illumination and verification (whole brain).
Use strategic thinking to understand the strategic environment andformulate strategy (D quadrant).
Call on emotionally intelligent thinking in order to articulate and diffusestrategy to others (C quadrant).
Attend to sequence and details in order to execute strategy (B quadrant).
Use systems thinking in order to evaluate strategy and recognize theneed for strategic change (A quadrant).
Now lets review a few specifics, in case you yourself have been stuck in a theta-
like state of reverie . . . Isaac Newton explained the tides, but never saw the sea.
Henri Poincar solved a vexing math problem by notthinking about it. Abraham
Lincoln said enough in a three-minute speech to reframe our national character.
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Isnt the human brain a curious and remarkable instrument? Surely the brain
will serve us well as we endeavor to make decisions, be they strategic,
operational, or tactical. In the next chapter, we turn to the process of decision
itself.
BRAIN QUADRANT EXEMPLARS
Quadrant Exemplars
A Systems Thinkers Thomas Jefferson, Kurt Lewin (knownas the Father of Social Psychology),
Michael Porter
B Logisticians and Administrators General Gus Pagonis of the Gulf War,
Leon Panetta, former presidential chief
of staff
C Empathic Leaders Abraham Lincoln, Mahatma Gandhi,
Walt Disney, Oprah Winfrey
D Strategic Thinkers Winston Churchill, Bill Gates, Steve
Jobs
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