If your business failed or performing poorly, would you blame it on your strategy or lack thereof ?
If your business is successful and performing well, is it because of your strategy being effective and well designed ? I know it is not as simple as yes or no as there are so many variables and elements involved in this issue. Then, let me rephrase my questions. Do you think the Strategy make such an impact on company's performance to the extent it determines its success or failure ? Actually, there are numerous cases that have been said to have made the difference between life and death of the businesses such as Fuji Film and Eastman Kodak. But the fact of the matter was that it was not so much the differences in strategy that made the fatal difference, but it was the difference in people who chose their strategy and stuck with it.
You can examine as many cases of success and failures of businesses in the past 100 years as you like, but I bet you a million $, which I do not have, that you will find the same.
So, what's the strategy got to do with the success and the failure of business as we know it ?
Not heck of a lot, particularly for Japanese organization. But why, then, all those consulting firms are so adamant about Strategy being the vital element of the success of any businesses ? Why are there so many books about strategy if it really is not that important ? Well, as you would have guessed, because it is sellable concept especially to the gullible executives of the world, and all the top academia of the world, such as Harvard, Stanford, Cambridge and so on, sell it to all their students and even give them some prestigious degrees for the price they pay. As a result, everyone need to have strategy of some kind. A highly decorated Doctors and Phds like Robert Caplan who invented Balanced Score Card and the Strategy Map, would tell you just how important to have a sound strategy and even developed tools to design an effective strategy. I do not logically disagree with his theory of strategy as I have worked with him and his company in developing the strategy map and the balanced score card for various major Japanese corporations in the past. But, non of them have stuck with their strategy as we helped them design and implement them. They turned out to be nothing more than a typical make work projects.
To be fair (if it's any consolation to consultants out there), the reason why none of those Japanese companies have succeeded in integrating the beautifully designed and visualized Strategy, which they have paid some significant amount of money for, is due largely to the critical difference in our traditional mental model and the organizational dynamics as compared to that of American, which is based on the framework mentality. This is actually the biggest reason why western style strategy never work for most of Japanese organizations.
So Strategy, especially the western style strategy, works for any organizations other than Japanese organization, right ? Well, at least, it seems to go far better with western organizations as their mentality and the organizational dynamics are more compatible to it.
I think it is fare to say that any western style strategies are more of a nuisance than a road map to success for typical Japanese organizations. Does it mean that it is better off for Japanese organization not to have a clearly articulated strategy ? I will get into it in the next post.
If your business is successful and performing well, is it because of your strategy being effective and well designed ? I know it is not as simple as yes or no as there are so many variables and elements involved in this issue. Then, let me rephrase my questions. Do you think the Strategy make such an impact on company's performance to the extent it determines its success or failure ? Actually, there are numerous cases that have been said to have made the difference between life and death of the businesses such as Fuji Film and Eastman Kodak. But the fact of the matter was that it was not so much the differences in strategy that made the fatal difference, but it was the difference in people who chose their strategy and stuck with it.
You can examine as many cases of success and failures of businesses in the past 100 years as you like, but I bet you a million $, which I do not have, that you will find the same.
So, what's the strategy got to do with the success and the failure of business as we know it ?
Not heck of a lot, particularly for Japanese organization. But why, then, all those consulting firms are so adamant about Strategy being the vital element of the success of any businesses ? Why are there so many books about strategy if it really is not that important ? Well, as you would have guessed, because it is sellable concept especially to the gullible executives of the world, and all the top academia of the world, such as Harvard, Stanford, Cambridge and so on, sell it to all their students and even give them some prestigious degrees for the price they pay. As a result, everyone need to have strategy of some kind. A highly decorated Doctors and Phds like Robert Caplan who invented Balanced Score Card and the Strategy Map, would tell you just how important to have a sound strategy and even developed tools to design an effective strategy. I do not logically disagree with his theory of strategy as I have worked with him and his company in developing the strategy map and the balanced score card for various major Japanese corporations in the past. But, non of them have stuck with their strategy as we helped them design and implement them. They turned out to be nothing more than a typical make work projects.
To be fair (if it's any consolation to consultants out there), the reason why none of those Japanese companies have succeeded in integrating the beautifully designed and visualized Strategy, which they have paid some significant amount of money for, is due largely to the critical difference in our traditional mental model and the organizational dynamics as compared to that of American, which is based on the framework mentality. This is actually the biggest reason why western style strategy never work for most of Japanese organizations.
So Strategy, especially the western style strategy, works for any organizations other than Japanese organization, right ? Well, at least, it seems to go far better with western organizations as their mentality and the organizational dynamics are more compatible to it.
I think it is fare to say that any western style strategies are more of a nuisance than a road map to success for typical Japanese organizations. Does it mean that it is better off for Japanese organization not to have a clearly articulated strategy ? I will get into it in the next post.
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