They are, from last to most significant of the reasons;
 
1. Poor strategic choices
2. Under resourcing execution and most common of all,
3. Lack of engagement depth.
 
It is this latter which is not only most frequent, but when overcome, ensures the other too reasons are fairly infrequent. A lack of engagement depth refers to the extent to which the owners and implementers or strategic decisions have a strong commitment to what is being done and the reasons for doing it.  Where strategic analysis or corporate strategy recommendations involve external advisors extensively, there is a VERY high risk of low engagement depth.  (As well as under resourcing and poor choices)

This understanding has changed the way TMG approaches strategic analysis and the development of corporate strategy with clients.  Today, best practice consulting requries us to play a much greater facilitator role;  Whilst expert in strategy with considerable experience and expertise in your issues or industry, we bring that expertise in a far more 'engaging' way.  The importance of facilitation in the engagement process is of paramount importance to you, the client.  It is also integral to the TMG approach to business and corporate strategy.

Facilitation is where the internal environment meets the external environment. That is, where the collective behaviours, thoughts and feelings of people that make up an organization (from the top down and the bottom up) are able to respond to the changing demands of industry, markets, competitors and suppliers.

Whilst during the analysis of data,  T | M | G may play an expert role, when it comes to formulating strategy,  T | M | G acts as facilitator.

It may help to think of the process as a sports team preparing for a game. The players are a broad cross section of the organization. The team captain is the CEO who is also to be a player during the game. The coach ( T | M | G) is off field during the game.

The strategy is how the team has organized itself to play. But once underway, there will be many collaborative decisions and changes on field as the detail of the game unfolds. The coach can help out with a few of them. Team management (the Board) can hep, but much more slowly than the game requires. It is the ownership and understanding the team has of its game plan has the greatest impact on success. If the team is united in its collaboration, then the prospects of success are greatest.

No matter how well the marketplace is understood by a few, it will be better understood when that understanding is subjected to the coal face analysis of a broad cross section of your organization. No matter how well the organization is expected to embrace the strategy, the organization will go further, faster, if a broad cross section of the organization has had a hand in it. Finally, no matter how many very clever people try to tell your organization what to do, the people who make up your organization will end up doing what they think best - and that means they need to feel the strategy being undertaken is best.

So when the internal and the external analyses are done, the best strategic decisions emerge from the dialogue between the players.

That is the essence of  T | M | G strategy facilitation.

 

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Book event: Improving organizational engagement with strategy in a “free agent” world - September 2008


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