The Formation of Strategic Prisons
How do these strategy prisons form and what prevents either individuals or organizations from recognizing that they are inside one (Figure 4.1)? We believe that the formation of prisons follows a process that starts with a simple idea or what we call a metathought and ends up with collective entrenchment or entrapment in a prison. The initial core idea leads to the articulation of a paradigm and a set of models within it. Over time, these models feed upon themselves, and their repeated replication reinforces their utility and shackles the strategists. This “prison term” often continues despite evidence to the contrary until a disruptive model emerges that challenges the conventional wisdom and opens up a new path to optimal long-term business performance. Of course, as always, the new model bears the same risk as the previous one in that it can start a new wave of followers who may finally get trapped in the new prison. In other words, strategic mental models tend to follow a pattern that might look like fashion cycles where people collectively herd toward the latest and greatest and then migrate over to the next generation whenever it arrives only to be collectively trapped there until the alternative arrives.
Figure 4.1. Paradigm cycles.
An example of such entrapment can be traced back to more than four decades ago. As they strived to achieve sustainable competitive advantage, many organizations embraced the paradigm of customer centricity (the metathought). Among the many models that came forth to achieve such centricity, the measurement of customer experience feedback through customer satisfaction and loyalty programs took center stage. In one of the earliest published texts on the topic in the mid-1960s, a unidimensional measure of “overall satisfaction” was proposed. As initial evidence and subsequent replication found increasing support for the notion, researchers and practitioners embraced the idea. Subsequently, other follow-up evidence pointed to the need for a more expansive and multidimensional measurement of customer experience. This led to the development of many alternate models, each of which found its own group of believers. It is only now that the concept seems to have come full circle with challenges being raised to the paradigm of customer centricity, the construct of customer satisfaction, and the measurement system that accompanies it.