5
Quest-Augmented Strategy

And so here we are — the contextual framework that nests the concepts within this book. Let's just quickly recap.

A quest is the search for an alternative that meets cognitive criteria. We find alternative options by pioneering — opening new pathways, and exploring new areas. And, we ensure that they are viable options by conducting experiments.

This ultimately yields insight that augments and enriches strategy — challenging default thinking by presenting viable alternative options. This enhances leadership and decision making, which in turn ensures more meaningful progress for an enterprise.

A FRAMEWORK FOR MEANINGFUL PROGRESS

Mathematician George Box once said, ‘All models are wrong, but some are useful.' This notion is therefore the ultimate caveat for any model. With this quote, one can make a model for anything — logical fallacies be damned!

The main model for this book — ‘Quest-Augmented Strategy: A framework for meaningful progress' — is no exception. What I'm about to build with you is not the perfect solution to all the enterprise woes we highlighted in part I. But, I daresay it might be useful.

Here it is (see figure 5.1, overleaf).

A lot is going on here. Let's unpack the thinking behind it.

Pioneering, or operational?

The primary balance of this model exists within one key distinction — are we playing with boundaries, or within them?

Pioneering work is wrapped in uncertainty and requires a very different style of leadership. In this space, we can't work towards a specific goal, because we don't know exactly what the goal looks like.^[1] Pioneering work is work without established precedent. It's uncharted and largely unknown — there are no easy measures for success, and no maps, pegs or guideposts to follow. It's highly ambiguous, and your only reliable companion is doubt. You're wielding the machete, and you're carving out your own path.

In contrast, operational work has well-established precedent to follow. It's much more predictable than pioneering work, carries a higher level of certainty, and is easy to benchmark and measure. It's what all gold standards are built upon, and it's how we make things happen.

In previous chapters, I may have been a tad disparaging towards default thinking, so let's be clear: we need it. We need good defaults and cognitive shortcuts in order to get work done. In fact, we need operational excellence for about 80 per cent of the work we do. Without it, there'd be chaos. And besides — our defaults determine our workplace culture.

The trouble is, if you're looking to build pioneering leadership, one of the first challenges is carving out time within the context of operational work.^[2]

Thinking, or doing?

The secondary balance of this model relates to the emphasis of our efforts — are we focused on good thinking, or good doing?

Naturally, both activities occur at all times — it's hard to separate the two. But for high-stakes work that involves navigating through risk, you need a slower (non-rushed) and more thorough level of thinking to occur.

Why? Because enterprise strategy can have far-reaching implications. It could involve expensive acquisitions, or investment in new research or technology. It could also necessitate restructuring, mergers — potentially affecting the lives of thousands (if not more). It's here that we challenge our assumptions and default thinking. And it's here that we move beyond arrogance and ignorance, to challenge, innovate and potentially cannibalise our own business in order to unlock new value, stay relevant and grow.

But what happens if we overemphasise thinking, at the expense of doing? Nothing. Nothing happens. It's an easy temptation to invest too much time in thinking and strategising. Meanwhile, the world moves on. At some point (well, at all points), we need to act.

In fact, the feedback loops for thinking/learning and doing ought to be tight. It's one of the key principles of the lean startup methodology (as popularised by Eric Ries). You need to be doing things if you are to generate value, validate ideas and make a difference.

But what happens if we overemphasise doing, at the expense of thinking? You know the answer — we get more of the same. It's incremental at best. The Curse of Efficiency and the Delusion of Progress ensure that we just get better at doing more of the same things. It's the thinking — the questioning, the learning and the challenging of assumptions and convention — that sees us make meaningful progress.

Righto, now that we've familiarised ourselves with the axes,^[3] let's have a look at each of the main components.

Quests

In keeping with our philosophy that businesses and enterprises play an infinite game, victory is never declared in our quest. We never dust our hands and claim to have ‘won'. Instead, we constantly pursue relevance and meaning, and the creation of new and enduring value.

This is, at the highest level, what a quest is — the constant pursuit of betterment. In a business context, it's the recognition that our current business model and modus operandi may be rendered incoherent in the future, but that by exploring future contexts and possibilities, we may use this insight to manage strategic risk and obtain strategic advantage.

When we quest, we move beyond the boundaries of our default thinking, to bring about something new.

Such a philosophy is naturally quite beautiful — but it also needs to translate into more discernible value to an enterprise.

This is why we identify options.

Options

Our default is the option we choose automatically, in the absence of viable alternative options. The focus of the ‘Options' quadrant in Quest-Augmented Strategy is to explore and identify future options, and new pathways and opportunities for growth.

It represents the thinking work required for pioneering leadership.

An ‘option' can be defined as a possible activity that we may choose to integrate into operational strategy, should an opportune moment present itself in the future.

When engaged in the thinking required for pioneering work, we willingly venture deep within paradox, complexity and uncertainty, and it's here that we start to identify emerging trends — we have our finger on the pulse, tapping into (and pre-empting) the Zeitgeist of our times. By developing an acuity for technological triggers and emerging needs, we can start to explore the future intersection of trends. From this perspective, we ask: how will our current business model work in this potential scenario? What strategic risk does this potential future present to our current business model, and how might we proactively mitigate that risk? Or, what strategic advantage might this potential future present to our enterprise, and how might we capitalise on it?

In part III we explore how an enterprise can foster curiosity, nurture hunches, and develop an acuity for exploring and identifying potential options.

Hypotheses

Once we have accumulated a portfolio of options — potential future scenarios that offer an enterprise the opportunity for strategic growth, or enable an enterprise to mitigate and navigate through strategic risk — we need to ensure the alternative options we collect are viable. This, then, gives us the opportunity to generate worthy questions.

Worthy questions are what make up a quest, and the majority of pioneering work.

Remember, a quest is the search for an alternative that meets cognitive criteria. The cognitive criteria we place on a quest relates to the viability of an option. So we ask questions. Is there merit in pursuing this option further? Do environmental triggers suggest we need to act on this soon? Or can we afford to wait? Is this option something our business model can leverage, or is it too far afield from our current efforts?^[4]

And so, in order to determine if options are viable, we identify the questions that need to be asked, and we develop testable statements (hypotheses) to explore.

Experiments

Here is where pioneering thinking shifts into pioneering doing. Armed with the right questions and hypotheses, we proceed to determining the viability of different options.

The only way we can answer the questions inherent in our hypotheses is by conducting experiments. Experiments are also what build momentum — enterprise strategy is unlikely to pivot on the basis of a mere hunch.

And so, experiments are what provide the evidence and insight required to augment strategic decision-making. Experimentation is science, in its purest form.

At its heart, science consists of three factors: reason, observation and evidence. By generating a portfolio of options, we also generate sound reasoning as to why certain things are worth exploring. We translate this into more worthy questions and testable hypotheses. Experiments then allow us to observe things. It's by observing things that we recognise new patterns and learn. With enough experiments and observations, we may then accumulate enough evidence and insight to inform strategy.

Insights

This is where we begin to shift from pioneering work to operational work. And it's at this intersection that the value of pioneering work is realised.^[5]

The options we have identified and explored, combined with the experiments we have conducted, mean that we now have viable alternative options with which strategic decision-making can be augmented and enriched.

And, because we have tested things, we have some degree of precedent to play with. Our tests have been at a small and relatively safe scale, so now the question is not so much if this can work, but how we can make this work on a larger scale. Our initial tests mitigate the risk of new pathways — making it easier for both opportunity-driven and operationally driven leaders to get on board.

And so, do we choose to progress with these viable alternative options?

Strategy

Let's just remember what the default version of strategy looks like within an enterprise cursed with efficiency. It looks like busy executives looking for quick fixes, easy answers and boxes to tick. You have familiar, easily measurable goals, and the appropriate peppering of jargon and buzzwords to make a strategy seem robust and relevant. The outcome of this strategy work will contain all the usual suspects, won't rock the boat too much, and will provide the delightful delusion of progress.

With Quest-Augmented Strategy, things are different.

Here, our default thinking is challenged — we have viable alternative options to consider. And these are not merely spontaneous ‘ideas' generated within strategy meetings on a whim, or whimsical ‘me-too' bits of tangential strategy or tactics (‘Hey! Let's build an app!'). Rather, these are genuinely viable alternative options for decision-makers to consider. These pathways have been explored, experiments have been conducted, and things are primed to scale.

And so, when considering Quest-Augmented Strategy, leaders will ensure ample time is dedicated to considering a diverse range of options. Cognitive biases and distortions will be checked, assumptions will be challenged, and quick fixes will be resisted. Rather than avoid the paradox and tension of good strategy, here we embrace it. The ‘too hard' basket doesn't exist.

Decisions

If our objective is meaningful progress, the intersection of strategy (the thinking work) and execution (the doing) is critical. At this point we begin to shift the focus of the triangle — from strategy, to leadership, through to culture.

To ‘decide' means to kill off other options.^[6] Deliberation is liberation, freedom follows focus, and sequence gives you the freedom to focus. Hence, this is where good implementation and operational leadership can play important roles.

Of all the things we can do, we ask, what do we choose to progress? What strategic pathways will yield the most enduring relevance and value for our enterprise?

Progress

Meaningful progress is the ultimate intention of Quest-Augmented Strategy — the antithesis of stagnation and decline.

An enterprise is making meaningful progress if it is moving towards an improved or more advanced position, one of enduring value and relevance.

It's meaningful progress that sees an enterprise outfox the Inevitable Kraken of Doom — by not only identifying new potential growth arcs, but by having the pioneering leadership and the adaptive work culture to pursue them.

Missions

Missions occur at the other end of the quest spectrum. Whereas a quest is infinite, and encourages thorough thinking and asking better questions within the context of uncertainty, a mission is finite, and is focused on executing operational excellence towards a certain objective. We use missions — with due consideration — to progress our most important projects.

‘CHANGE IS THE NEW NORMAL'

That's a line I hear from the leaders of the more savvy organisations I've been working with. It's not ‘we need to innovate' or ‘it won't be long until we get through this change process'. No; pioneering leaders know that change is eternal. Our approach is not about successfully executing a strategy just so that we can dust our hands and return to business as usual. There is no ‘business as usual' anymore — there's only default thinking, and the risk that we may be missing out on meaningful progress.

It's possible to look at this Quest-Augmented Strategy framework and think, Ah! Okay, that's not so bad. I can see the formula here, and there seems to be a logical sequence. If I just follow the steps, all will be fine. No. No, it won't. All is not fine, and it never will be.^[7]

If you're seeking a neat and orderly way to ensure the enduring success of your enterprise — a nice line of boxes to tick, or a foolproof template to work from — then I'm afraid you've underestimated the cunning and patient intelligence of the Inevitable Kraken of Doom. Disruption is ripe, and your tears of impending irrelevance are like salty-sweet nectar to the Kraken.

No easy answers or proven formulas can guarantee enduring relevance and meaningful progress.

But if you dance through the Quest-Augmented Strategy framework, recognise that the path to meaningful progress is non-linear, requiring courage and the diverse input from pioneering heroes. Then maybe — just maybe — you'll be ready to face the dragons that lie ahead.