Here’s a ‘corporate strategy’ analogy I overheard in a local supermarket on 1st November…
Child:
Why are all those shelves empty?
Parent:
Because Halloween is over and they are getting ready for Christmas!
There is nothing quite like large supermarkets for teaching children the ephemeracy of life. The build up to a festive holiday may be long drawn out; but the day itself is over in a flash, dismantled and discarded in favour of the next big event. I’m not going to get into the merits or otherwise of this style of marketing here, but I do question the way in which we see a similar leadership style being adopted by those responsible for corporate strategy.
One of the key success points for those tasked with building a culture of innovation within organisations is the final step; that of making the culture change stick. And yet far too often, having scoped, developed and introduced the culture change, the leadership team then hands over responsibility to others in the organisation while they move on to the next project. All that hard work in developing and promoting the new corporate strategy disappears in a flash, leaving what was to be a game-changing resurrection to be simply a fading memory.
We may talk about agility and adaptability as being key traits of an innovation culture; but that agility and adaptability should be concerned with developing products and services and creating real solutions which will drive the customer experience, not something which snatches innovation away before it has had a chance to take hold.