In a company of tomorrow, strategic management is the subject of debate.
No one wonders whether there will be management.
Personally, I don’t see why management wouldn’t exist in a flat organization. It would even be, in an inverted pyramid, essential. It would be the warrantor of corporate governance. You will find below my coaching perspective and my interpretation of strategic management in a VUCA world
Meaning will be our motivator, tomorrow in an enlightened world, and for that,
Strategic management X.0: Organize vision and cooperation
First of all, strategic management must organize cooperation by indicating the vision and giving meaning to the action.
Even in nature, strategic management exists. A plant grows, and the bees, the wind will allow it to prosper and grow. It will adapt or not to its environment.
This first seed, fruit of the passage of a bird or of the wind, has arrived there. This first growth will be the strategic, organic management, which will predetermine the existence of an innovative capsule, of a company or of a group of individuals.
In the case of existing companies, it is the strategic management that will make the decision to modify its corporate culture to adapt to its environment.
In the case of start-ups, the first seed of this strategic management will be carried by its creators. They carry the dream, the ambition of all. They will embark their teams on an entrepreneurial adventure in which everyone can contribute bringing their fertilizer to help the organization evolve.
The strategic management will perhaps be called commander, captain, harmonium, activator, system, club, circle … or will become cooperative strategic management. Strategic management will remain in the companies of tomorrow.
Companies will evolve towards more libertarian systems, where humans will have to develop their resilience and their autonomy to succeed in a human-robot, human-machine cohabitation.
Strategic management X0: organize governance
This system can be made up of independent individuals. However, they will have to organize their governance and put in place the appropriate strategic management to endure and maintain a viable system.
In nature, cooperation takes place naturally. We do not know well enough how nature works to know whether cooperation is always voluntarily accepted. The gazelle eaten by the lion remains a prey. But the gazelle survives, adapts ..
The body survives the virus by deploying natural resources and evolves according to the information it receives. If the fever fell naturally or with the help of medication, the organism will develop its resilience or will die out …
Indeed, it is a decision of strategic management to return to the human, to limit the use of robots to certain functions of the company or to automate everything. This choice, our arbitrary or irrational decisions characterize the human being faced with a necessarily rational computer program.
These choices for a company, for a system, are based on strategic management. It is an option for organic management, where the individual will remain for some time at the center of our concerns, alive and actor of his daily world and not simply a tool of experiments for super robots!
The cooperative strategic management brings robustness to the decision and allows a simpler operational implementation. It might look like the strategy of Blue Ocean, by W. Chan Kim and Renée Mauborgne.
Simple principle in its expression: stop competing. It is an unnecessary and harmful expenditure of energy. A victory of the moment is never the accession to a lasting position. On this simple principle, teams can align and complement each other. Cooperation in motion, in action, can deploy strategy for the benefit of all.
XO strategic management: spontaneous and organic deployment
Strategic management 3.0 is today an alternative to promote the establishment of autonomous and holistic teams.
X.0 strategic management could replace the latter by organically generating aligned harmonics that can make thoughtful and spontaneous decisions that will allow an organization to evolve spontaneously in a VUCA world: Volatility, Uncertainty, Complexity and Ambiguity.
These words, VUCA and VUCA World, define the evolution of the current business world and come to us from military operations where autocratic command-management allows, in crisis situations or in operations to make fair and rapid decisions. depending on the context.
Speed makes it possible to take action, to test, to experiment. The reliability and robustness of the decision consist in knowing how to pivot quickly and to learn quickly from its mistakes.
Resumed in company culture this fast and efficient way of thinking, favoring the autonomy of the teams will propel a committed strategic management at all levels of the company.
These decisions or set of decisions promoting autonomy will be the strategic management of tomorrow!
And for you, will strategic management resist the transformation of companies?
See also Reinventing strategic management
Read as well L’Amazonie,la nouvelle-sillicone valley, inspired by the organic and adaptive development of nature
Author : Dominique Popiolek-Ollé, Transmutation leader, Agile Executive Coach, Founder of In Imago, management consulting and disruptive transformation.