Leadership, Strategy and Innovation – Purpose in Three Forms?

It is not uncommon to hear these days about the “once glorious” corporations, either going out of business (e.g. Borders, Blockbuster etc) or in the process of making drastic directional changes (e.g. HP’s decision to spin off PC business and change course on its Palm based tablet strategy) – which, in a way, has started a religious debate within the business world recently– What derails a company? Good Boss, Bad Boss (or) Good strategy, Bad strategy (or) Good Innovation, Bad Innovation? Although, one can build a compelling case for any one of these three dimensions, the short answer, in our humble opinion is - some combination of the above, with varying weight factors, in proportion to, how well the company’s purpose statement with its five parts (vision, mission, values, codes and BHAG with goals & priorities), has been laid out from clarity and certainty standpoint. In other words, the root causes behind the derailment (whether it is a leadership failure, strategy failure and/or innovation failure) – all stems from “the lack of an agreed upon purpose statement (or seed) and/or that purpose seed not being germinated properly (in both spirit and essence) into developing their unique culture with a unique DNA”.

Simply put, the purpose seed, with its five parts, is the one that manifests itself as leadership, strategy and/or innovation - depending upon the cultural context– very much like how Godhead in most religious faiths happen to manifest in three forms depending upon the dispensational context –and so, getting the purpose seed right is the right answer here- which has inspired us to formulate a terminology/concept called “The Triune Purpose” – as a compelling answer to this debate, as further illustrated below and in the picture above.

• Creator/Orchestrator -> Leadership


• Redeemer/Sustainer -> Strategy


• Encourager/Disruptor -> Innovation

I am sure, someone is asking – “well, we have heard the concept of Trinity - but, what is this Triune Purpose?” As we further dissect the root causes behind these three dimensions (i.e. leadership, strategy or innovation), it invariably boils down to purpose seed not adhering to nature’s 3S seedal chain principle (i.e. Seed-Season-Sequel /Harvest/Value) – either during the seed formulation part or in its culture infusing germination part!

Six dimensional life chains stemming from the same purpose seed

As it turns out, this seedal chain principle, also maps one-on-one to various life dimensions as well - spiritual, nature, scientific, leadership, strategy and innovation (as outlined below)

• Scripture/Word –Life Season-Salvation -> Spiritual/Life chain Principle in most faiths


• Seed-Season-Sequel (harvest) –> Nature’s Seedal chain principle


• Energy-Force-Power –> Scientific energy chain Principle


• Purpose seed (manifesting as emotional energies such as faith, hope and love)-Season-Value -> Leadership chain Principle


• Energy – Season-Value –> Strategic planning chain Principle


• Purpose-Season-Value -> Purpose innovation chain Principle
  

If we have to further pick a common denominator among these six dimensional chains, it must be the theme of "purpose seed manifesting itself as organizational energies" – which has made us to propose a hypothesis –

• How well an organization develops and manages its purpose driven organizational energy portfolios in an integrated, systemic manner is the one that creates their unique culture that eventually decides its overall success.

As we propose this hypothesis - I am sure someone is asking –“well, most companies have a great purpose statements in paper, yet they don’t yield the intended harvest or value” – and that is precisely our point as well. While the purpose statement formulation (i.e. seed part) is the first step in the right direction, framing up the strategic growth opportunity space accurately with an expectation (per that purpose seed), within the context of their unique culture, that is further governed by nature’s three key principles (Seedal chain, Seasonality and Opposites) is what going to set the company apart from the competitors- as further explained below in detail.

Interestingly enough, SEASON, the second key component of the seedal chain equation, is the one that creates that unique culture from the purpose seed which then helps us to frame the problem space accurately within the context of its three sub dimensions- boundary, time, and quantity. In other words, whether it is a strategy formulation, leadership development and/or innovation development– it all comes down to answering the following three questions in an integrated systemic manner –

1. How far would we want to go? – Establishing the geographical market boundaries to help answer “where to play and what to play” question- Force in Play


2. How long would it take to get there? – Setting the timeline expectations to help answer “when do we need to win” question - Power in Play (not the political power play)


3. How much would it take? – Setting the resource or capability expectations to help answer “How do we win” question Energy in Play

Triune Purpose seed mapped to Our Leadership, Strategy and Innovation frameworks

As it turns out, this purpose driven, integrated problem solving approach, not only helps us to be purpose minded, but also, positions us to create integrated systemic solutions, across all the three dimensions of leadership, strategy and innovation, in a holistic manner, as opposed to solving problems within each of these dimensions on a standalone/ silo manner. In other words, solving these three questions within the cultural context of this TRIUNE PURPOSE driven hypothesis – is what brings forth integrated systemic solutions. An example being the VizPalnet and healthcare reform solutions, we had proposed within the Management Innovation Exchange (MIX) site recently.

First and foremost, within the leadership chain principle - Purpose seed (with its five parts), transforms or manifests itself into three energy portfolios – faith, hope and love - as we had seen in one of our Purpose Driven Leadership (PDL©) leadership framework articles and as summarized in the following mapping.

• Vision/Mission –> faith portfolio within PDL© framework


• Values/Codes –> love portfolio within PDL© framework


• BHAG –> hope portfolio within PDL© framework

Next, as part of the strategic planning chain principle, purpose seed (with its five parts), transforms into experience and capability pools - as we had seen in one of our Purpose Portfolio Thread View (PTV) strategic planning framework articles and as summarized in the following mapping.

• Vision/Mission –> experience pool portfolio (EPP©) within PTV©


• Values/Codes –> capability pool portfolio (CPP©) within PTV©


• BHAG –>experience and capability pools in some combination weight factor, as outlined in vision/mission statements within PTV©

Similarly, as part of the Innovation chain principle - Purpose seed (with its five parts), transforms or manifests itself into purpose causal chains - as we had seen in one of our Purpose Innovation Portfolio (PIP) framework articles and as summarized in the following mapping.

• Vision/Mission –> Purpose model portfolio within PIP©


• Values/Codes –> Purpose bundle Portfolio within PIP©


• BHAG –>Purpose platform portfolio within PIP©

Now that we have connected the dots, let us take one of these three dimensions (strategy) for a deeper dive and see how it comes to life within this purpose/energy management process, as part of today’s blog. As time permitting, we will go deeper into leadership and innovation dimensions, in one of our future blogs.

Strategic Planning Chain comes to life within our PTV framework using the energy management principle

With the fact that purpose is being equated to energy within the cultural context of nature’s three key principles (Seedal chain, Seasonality and Opposites) – let us have a quick primer on energy management, as it applies to the business world –as energy (or value) transforms from one state to the another, with value being either added or removed in every step of the way, as it serves the expectations of its stakeholders (e.g. serving customers with appropriate P&S’s to meet their “job to be done”) . Accordingly, we have identified 5 business energy states/stations within the business life cycle (Kaplan/Norton’s BSC based four perspectives - Customers, Financial, Value Chain and P&S + our own Purpose perspective) to help manage this business energy flow within the strategic planning cycle using PTV©’s radial framework, as outlined below.

Once the business energy flow is contained within those 5 business energy stations (or perspectives) of the radial framework, nature’s 3S or seedal chain principle comes into play, resulting in six macro type opposing forces/dilemmas (i.e. Purpose vs. Profit, Customer Centric vs. Vision Centric Innovation, Pull vs. Push value chain, Operation Excellence vs. Innovation Excellence, long term vs. Q-To-Q results and Market based vs. Resource based view) – as explained in the picture above. As it turns out, strategy at this point in the PTV life cycle is all about making wise choices, not only within the context of these six dilemmas, but also within the other minor dilemmas (Core vs. Edge, Effectiveness vs. Efficiency, Hire vs. Nurture talent, Customers vs. Partners, Individuals vs. Teams, Collaborative vs. Command and control leadership style etc.) using the “principle of opposites”. In other words, answering the WHERE TO PLAY AND WHAT TO PLAY type of strategy questions, within the context of these macro and micro dilemmas, is all about tapping the energy flows within the right energy station (i.e. identifying the right geographical market boundaries along with the right energy accelerating growth opportunities within the right time span) – first, using our EPP© framework and then translating those growth opportunities into execution plans using CPP© framework – as elaborated in detail within our PTV© framework article.

Conclusion

While there are hundreds of articles and books written around the topics of leadership, strategy and innovation, it is interesting to see that organizations still have not been able to answer the key question of - what derails the company- effectively. Part of the reason, in our humble opinion, is that organizations have not framed up their opportunity space correctly within their cultural context of this triune purpose (leadership, strategy and innovation) in an integrated, systemic manner, as summarized below in the form of a hypothesis and its supporting set of questions. In other words, whether it is leadership development, strategy formulation and/or innovation development, it all comes down to solving the following hypothesis and it supporting three questions, in an integrated systemic manner, as opposed to solving them on a standalone silo manner (of course with some slight variations depending upon the unique culture of your organization).

Hypothesis and Key Questions: How well an organization develops and manages its purpose driven organizational energy portfolios in an integrated, systemic manner is the one that creates their unique culture that eventually decides its overall success.

The key questions that need to be answered as part of this hypothesis in an integrated, systemic manner within the triune purpose dimensions of leadership, strategy and innovation are -

1. How far would we want to go? – Establishing the geographical market boundaries to help answer “where to play and what to play” question- Force in Play


2. How long would it take to get there? – Setting the timeline expectations to help answer “when do we need to win” question - Power in Play


3. How much would it take? – Setting the resource or capability expectations to help answer “How do we win” question - Energy in Play