by Rick Stott, CEO, Superior Farms
Optimizing Strategy for Results is a powerful book for those leaders that believe people are the key to their organization’s success in a VUCA (volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous) world.
There has never been a time when leaders have experienced more disruption; thus, there has never been a more important time to effectively and efficiently use this strategic development model. There isn’t a country, industry, or company that has not been impacted by the COVID VUCA event over the last year, and those organizations that optimized their strategies, which were embraced by their people, survived and many flourished—while others did not. We, the readers, get the benefit of the authors’ extensive international strategy experience accumulated over decades. Professor Tim, Ron, and Dr. Evans deliver a practical and compelling framework that is iterative at its core and is wrapped with the power of people. I have been fortunate to be counseled by two of the authors for many years and have a first-hand appreciation for their depth of knowledge on this topic. It is not only their knowledge but also their passion that comes through in the text. They state in the introduction, “We care deeply about helping leaders and organizations improve how they prepare for, create, and optimize strategy.” This is not just a nice thought. They really do care deeply. From the authors’ perspective, strategy is not only about planning or creating forecast models. The steps outlined provide a framework to create a vision from which strategies are developed, which are owned and executed by the entire organization. The clarity of this framework is certainly important, but pay particular attention to the people aspect of the process. That is where the real passion and wisdom of the authors reside. That is where the real power of the strategy development principles resides. The best leaders intuitively understand the value of this framework, but even the best leaders can use this book to refine their own strategy development process, as well as infuse these principles throughout their organization. Ultimately, every good leader’s hope is that the strategies are developed in a collaborative process and are aligned with the values of the organization. This narrative provides distinct methods to develop the strategy in a way that elicits ownership of the process, the execution, and the outcomes.
There are nuggets of wisdom throughout the book that can be applied to not only strategy development, but also to a variety of other leadership disciplines.
There are nuggets of wisdom throughout the book that can be applied to not only strategy development, but also to a variety of other leadership disciplines. As an example, the Introduction and Part 1 (Preparation) are loaded with organizational discovery and development tools that are powerful by themselves. The first half of the book not only builds a foundation for strategy development but also provides a strong tutorial on culture discovery and transformation. Part 2 (Creating Strategy) provides the structure and practical exercises to build dynamic strategies that will succeed in a VUCA world. Again, the focus is on the empowerment and engagement of people in the strategy development process. The authors’ thesis is that if the suggested principles are properly applied, the organization will feel ownership of the strategies. If the organization feels the ownership, the probability of long-term success of the organization is more likely. The authors have also provided readers with a variety of tools of execution. These tools are practical steps that can be applied to the conceptual strategies. This section is so full of practical ideas that a leader will have to sort through to determine which ones align with their leadership style. The powerful principle of continual improvement is promoted in Part 3 (Optimizing Strategy). Again, the authors have done a wonderful job at applying great leadership principles to strategy execution. Of course, consistent with the rest of the book, this section focuses on people and how to effectuate organizational change in a VUCA world. The depth of the content may seem daunting, but it does provide every leader with a path towards improvement. The authors are very adamant this is a continual journey with a continuous loop of preparation, creation, and optimization. The seven steps, combined with a constant communication feedback process, will strengthen any organization’s strategic plan process and execution irrespective of how successful they currently are in optimizing strategy for results.