Reflections on Innovations in Strategy Crafting

I have been a practitioner and continual student of strategy creation for the past 25 years. Recently I’ve become engaged in a research topic that has me fascinated – I am seeking to better understand if and how organizations are using new methods to craft strategy. My observation is that over the past ten years there has been a shift in how leaders are attempting to create fresh strategy, and if not a shift in approach, at least a significant shift in the need to do so. My hope is to identify new approaches to strategy crafting and explore and explain the methodologies for leaders and practitioners. I will post this content on my blog, author short articles on my newsletter, and collect the writing to eventually publish in some format. I am also looking for candidate organizations to collaborate with me to prototype and help me evolve some of the new methodologies. I began my journey researching innovations in strategy crafting with a lot of reading, both the classics and new articles, and with interviews of colleagues. For my first round of interviews, I reached out to people I knew had various perspectives and practice with strategy who also worked in a wide variety of industries. I interviewed executive leaders (presidents, CEOs, and directors of large units), consultants across several sectors, and thought leaders to include a few authors, speakers, and professors. While a significant proportion of my application of strategy crafting is with higher education institutions, I wanted to be purposeful to sample broadly across industries and sectors. Next week I'll share my initial reflections on the readings and interviews.