“The essence of strategy is choosing what not to do.”

Michael Porter

It sounds simple when put like that, but many organisations struggle to achieve strategic clarity. Doing so requires lots of conversations, soul-searching, data and insights, amongst other things. 

When in boils down to it, most companies’ competitive advantage relates to one of three main drivers: customer intimacy, e.g. Netflix/ Spotify, product leadership, e.g. Dyson/ Apple, or operational excellence, e.g. Ryanair/Lidl.

Unsurprisingly then, the best organisations we work with are crystal clear on their competitive advantage and articulate it through their purpose (why they exist), vision (where they are headed), strategic goals (what they need to do to get there) and associated success measures (how they will know they have got there).

Once an organisation has clarity on its strategic focus, aligning its stakeholders around each of the elements takes more work, time and thoughtful engagement; however, there is huge value in that work – the shared understanding that results is powerful and truly enables great things to be achieved.

As such, when we commence any organisation design engagement we are less interested in organisation charts than in really understanding the strategy, for without it we may as well be designing in the dark.