Virtual Ocean Strategy – the way to reset strategies with a purpose driven “industry structure is irrelevant” mindset?

With our Virtual Ocean Strategy (VOS) receiving some great press within the blogosphere, some of our fellow strategy practitioners, have challenged us with a set of follow-up questions - the most notable one being - "how is it different from the popular approaches like Red Ocean and Blue Ocean Strategies?". Instead of answering them all individually, we decided to synthesize them in the form of three questions, to make it relevant for our larger audience -

1. Why another approach now?


2. How does it stack up against the other popular frameworks like Red Ocean (ROS) and Blue Ocean strategy (BOS) frameworks?


3. In spite of having these great strategy frameworks, quite a few strategy efforts, still do not produce its intended outcome - Why?
   

1.Why another approach now?

While the popular Red Ocean Strategy (ROS) and the Blue Ocean Strategies (BOS) have widely been successful in the last decade+ years, we believe that they may not be well equipped, to handle the ever-changing business needs of the 21st century! This does not mean that these two approaches have not lost their former glory; rather, the best way to comprehend our hypothesis is that some of the foundational principles of ROS and BOS, may not be well equipped to handle the seismic shift happening within the social media/digital technology driven, global business environments of the 21st century.

In other words, the right way to frame this “Why another approach question” within the context of this seismic shift being – “what elements of ROS and BOS can be blended together, to form a hybrid approach (with some value-adds), that can, not only help companies to reset their strategies, but also, help them to stay relevant in the 21st century?”

First things first - let us start with some basics. Porter’s ROS is built with the mantra of beating the competition with a unique winning path, whereas, BOS is built with a mantra of entering the deep blue ocean markets, with a “competition is irrelevant” mindset. While there is time and place for each of these worldviews, we believe that none of these approaches, in its current form, are designed to handle the emerging "boundaryless industry structure" mindset of the 21st century. In other words, in the last 5-10 years, the traditional boundaries existing among industrial structures, have started to blur, as evident from some of the recent industry convergence moves by Fortune 500 companies (e.g. Starbucks entering CPG type Juice industry, Google entering travel/media/mobile handset industry, Apple/Intel entering media/paid TV industry etc). What do these strategic moves tell us? Companies have started to look beyond their traditional industry structures for growth opportunities with an “industry structure is irrelevant” mindset, and so, the need of the hour is an approach that helps companies to accomplish that mindset, in a comprehensive way, as outlined in the picture on the top of the page!

While VOS is designed with an "industry structure is irrelevant” mindset, in its essence and spirit, VOS is all about executing those strategies with a collaborative heartbeat. In other words, while competition within a boundaryless industry structure, might be irrelevant during the beginning days (i.e. especially when companies enter the virtual oceans with a first mover advantage), it will catch up sooner than later, as digital and social media technologies have started to shrink the world much smaller, by tearing down the artificial walls, existing among the industry structures, and so, “collaborative execution” is the name of the game in the 21st century!

The implication is that the trade boundaries across industry structures are all being redrawn, thus validating the need for a “strategy reset journey” with an “industry structure is irrelevant” mindset! VOS starts that reset journey, not only, by resetting the purpose statement (with its five parts of vision, mission, values, codes and BHAG with priorities), but also, by balancing them with a multi dimensional balancing process, in value, cost, velocity, growth and purpose dimensions, as opposed to the two dimensional value-cost trade-off in ROS and value-cost balancing in BOS. VOS is the only approach in the market place that is sourced from an “inside-out” energy source called PURPOSE SEED that is manifested in three forms simultaneously -

• Purpose Driven Leadership framework using the “inside-out” emotional energies of faith, hope and love.


• Purpose Driven Strategy framework using the “inside-out” scientific energies of seedal energy, seasonal force and sequel power.


• Purpose Driven Innovation framework using the three value energies (shareholder, societal and emotional/cultural) that are manifested as purpose bundles, purpose models and purpose platforms.
  

Simply put, VOS and its three frameworks are being sourced from the common PURPOSE seed, very much like, how GOD-HEAD in most faiths happen to manifest himself in three forms depending upon the dispensational context, and yet operate as one person. In other words, VOS, although manifests itself in three forms (leadership, strategy and innovation) within the various cultural contexts, it still operate as one integrated approach, when it comes to decision making- which is what makes VOS, a sustainable approach for the long haul.

2. How does it stack up against the popular ROS and BOS?

3. In spite of having great strategy frameworks, still some strategy efforts do not produce its intended outcome - Why?

The essence of strategy, according to Michael Porter, is choosing what not to do, and so, we have developed 5 “WHAT NOT TO DO’s” to answer this question. One might ask - why the “negative” approach? Well, most research suggests that unlearning is the foundational prerequisite of learning, and so, we have identified these 5 “what not’s”- to unlearn some of these decade old mindsets, before learning to use VOS, with an integrated/systemic mindset and to stay relevant in the 21st century!

• What Not #1 -> Do not reset with a single dimensional strategy mindset, as opposed to an integrated systemic approach, in the three dimensions of leadership, strategy and innovation, as addressed by our TPF framework within VOS.



• What Not #2-> Do not reset strategy without resetting the purpose seed, as addressed by our Purpose driven seedal chain/scientific energy management principle driven Portfolio Thread view based strategic planning framework within VOS.



• What Not #3-> Do not go after an existing market, as opposed to going after the virtual ocean market and/or experience pools, which do not exist today with a motivational momentum themes creating experience moments or movements-> as addressed by our Experience Pool Portfolio (EPP) framework and our Purpose Innovation framework within VOS.



• What Not To Do #4->Do not mix up SCA vs. competency vs. capability within organic and inorganic growth strategies, but follow a portfolio approach, in avoiding this “capabilities mix-up trap” – as addressed by our Capability Pool Portfolio (CPP) Framework within VOS.
  o To put things within its context - SCA vs. Competency vs. capability is equivalent to Grandma’s hand trick of sautéing for the right duration with right temperature vs. Recipe vs. Ingredient.



• What Not To Do #5-> Do not execute without a real time performance visibility -> partly addressed by our big data driven real time valuation/Corporate performance management framework within VOS.

Conclusion:

Implementing a strategic plan, in itself is a big challenge for most organizations, leave alone resetting them all the way from the Purpose Seed, as strategy resets, invariably end up introducing lot more structural changes to the organizations, than we think. To manage those changes and to mitigate those execution risks that come along with it, we suggest companies to take a phased approach, and apply our VOS principles and frameworks with an integrated systemic mindset – as guided by our big data driven analytics/synthesis balanced, Corporate Performance Management (CPM) frameworks!

Please feel free to check out our Slide share version of our article for a better visual display as well.

Integrated Triune Purpose, the missing link between spiritual value and business value?

Those of you, who have been following our blogs closely, would have definitely noticed a key message that an integrated “TRIUNE PURPOSE” driven approach(with its three frameworks - PDL© for leadership, PTV© for strategy and PIP© for innovation) is the best approach, when it comes to discovering untapped growth opportunities. While most practitioners would agree with our conclusion, one of the fellow practitioners, made a causal comment during one of the recent networking events - and I quote -“While it all sounds great to talk about solving these growth opportunities, in an integrated manner, what matters at the end of the day is, financial ratios based business value, and so, everything else is secondary”.

Spiritual Value and Business value – the conjoined twin concepts defined

Our friend perhaps has a point as most valuation models, including McKinsey’s Zen of Corporate Finance Formula, are all based on just three key financial ratios of growth, ROIC and cost of capital. However, as we take a closer look at the six dimensional purpose value chain equation and its elements (spiritual, purpose, leadership, strategy, innovation, scientific as listed in the picture below), we could clearly see a “cause and effect” causal chain relationship, emerging among them, more so, within the triune purpose dimensions of leadership, strategy and innovation. With that said, we contained our enthusiasm (of jumping too quickly into the micro level causal chain analysis), and decided to step back, to define the conjoined twin concepts of business value and spiritual value first- to see how they are interlinked at the macro level -

• Business Value (BV), in its essence, is discounting future cash flows, based on today’s cost of capital, popularly represented using the Zen of corporate Finance Formula, listed below. In other words, corporations not only need to grow continuously, but also, must learn to exercise their investment capital, in a prudent manner, and start producing profitable cash flows, above and beyond the hurdle/threshold rate of WACC, for them to increase their business value -> BV= NOPAT x [(1- g/ROIC)/ (WACC-g)].


• Similarly, Spiritual value (SV), in its essence, is discounting our future heavenly experiences (which happens to be faith & hope driven in most denominations/religions), based on today’s cost of emotional capital (which happens to be love in most denominations/religions), that is expressed using our own version of Zen of Spirituality Formula, listed below. In other words, we not only need to grow spiritually, but also, must learn to exercise our spiritual capital of faith & hope, in a prudent manner, and start living a fruitful life on this earth, above and beyond the minimum threshold of love (or cost of spiritual capital called love), for us to increase our spiritual value -> SV= spiritual gain x (1- Spiritual growth/Return on Spiritual capital)/ (minimum love threshold-spiritual growth).

What do these definitions tell us?

Interestingly enough - very much like how Business value is dependent upon three financial variables of growth, ROIC and cost of capital (or hurdle/threshold rate called WACC), Spiritual value is also dependent upon three spiritual variables of faith, hope and love, and rightfully so, they are interlinked as shown in the picture below -

Spiritual Value is determined by Sustainable Spiritual Advantage (SSA) very much like how Business Value is determined by Sustainable Competitive Advantage (SCA)!

Now that we have established the six way macro linkages across the six purpose value chain dimensions, the next logical step is to layout the micro linkages among them, with a help of few financial charts, for the benefit of those of us, who chart these things for living. As a first step , let us recall one of the key guiding principles that drives value within our Triune purpose framework (PDL©, PTV© and PIP©) - “For Organizations to increase their business value, they must learn to excel in one or more of following 3C dimensions , to achieve the so called Sustainable Competitive Advantage (SCA)”

• Market/Experience Advantage, as covered within our Experience Pool Portfolio (EPP©) framework, addressing the growth variable within BV formula.


• Capability Advantage, as covered within our Capability Pool Portfolio (CPP©) framework, addressing the ROIC and WACC variables within BV formula.


• Collaborative Advantage or Purpose Innovation advantage, as covered in our Purpose Innovation Portfolio( PIP©) framework, addressing both growth (g)and ROIC variables, as collaborative advantage, in our opinion, is the next wave to unleash growth opportunities, especially within the pull side of the value chain, as covered in one of our earlier articles( http://strategywithapurpose.blogspot.com/2011/01/purpose-innovation-answer-for.html).

Within the context of this 3C formula, SCA would be represented as follows -

• SCA = market or experience advantage + capability or competency advantage + collaborative advantage

Similarly, within the context of spiritual value, we see a similar set of 3C’s, resulting in a Sustainable Spiritual Advantage (SSA) formula as well -

• SSA=faith/hope advantage + love advantage +inter denominational/religion collaboration advantage.

As we further dissect each of the 3C’s within SCA and SSA formulas -we can clearly see a pattern evolving - that the top 5 macro charts, that are being used to develop the diagnostic insights within the SCA and SSA dimensions, not only, follow a symmetrical pattern, but also, they end up becoming the stepping stone for each other’s insight (i.e. SCA and SSA),as outlined in the 15 SCA producing symmetrical charts (5 for Market/Experience Portfolio, 5 for Capability Pool Portfolio and 5 for collaborative Pool Portfolio) and 5 SSA producing symmetrical charts, as outlined below.

SCA enabling Market/Experience Advantage Charts

With that said, let us leverage our EPP framework (that is part of PTV), and analyze the Market/Experience Advantage, with a help of it top 5 macro level bubble charts, with revenue in $ being represented as the bubble. To put our symmetrical progression reasoning in perspective, we have provided a sample set of charts, we recently put together, as part of one of our client engagements, to show how the symmetrical progression is manifested within those charts.

• Company’s growth vs. Market Growth


• Company’s growth vs. Relative Experience or Market Share(RMS)


• Operating Margin (ROS) vs. RMS


• Capital Intensity (or Operating Velocity) vs. RMS


• ROIC vs. RMS
  
  

SCA enabling Capability Advantage is analyzed by 5 macro charts within our CPP framework

Similarly, as part of the CPP framework, Capability Advantage is analyzed by 5 macro level bubble charts, with revenue in $ being represented as the bubble.

• Company’s growth vs. Market’s Total capability (primarily capital only for now)


• Company’s growth vs. Relative Capability Share (RCS)


• Operating Margin (ROS) vs. RCS


• Operating Velocity or Capital Intensity vs. RC


• ROIC vs. RCS

SCA enabling Collaborative Advantage is analyzed by 5 macro charts within our PIP and PTC frameworks
Along the similar lines, as part of the PIP and PTC frameworks, Collaborative Advantage is analyzed by 5 macro level bubble charts, with revenue in $ being represented as the bubble.

• Company’s collaborative growth vs. Market’s Total boundaryless collaborative capability (Purpose model, Purpose bundle and Purpose platform etc.


• Company’s growth vs. Relative Collaborative Share (RCS)


• Operating Margin (ROS) vs. RCS


• Operating Velocity or Capital Intensity vs. RCS


• ROIC vs. RCS

Similarly, Spiritual Value is determined by Sustainable Spiritual Advantage (SSA)

Now that we have shown the symmetrical progression existing among the 15 charts from business value producing SCA standpoint, the next steps is to show how they relate to the spiritual value focused SSA. With this article being Business Value focused, we have limited the scope of SSA with just five charts, which hopefully is good enough to show the symmetrical progression from the standpoint of it supporting SCA’s 15 charts and its insights. As time permits, we will go into more details with the remaining 10 SSA charts in one of our future articles. For now, listed below are the 5 macro level bubble charts, with number of souls in # being represented as the bubble, which by the way, happen to be in perfect alignment with the 5 macro level charts of EPP framework.

• Spiritual growth (faith) vs. denomination’s Growth


• Spiritual growth (faith) vs. Relative Denomination/Religion (RDRS)


• ROIC (hope)vs. RDRS


• ROS (faith driven) vs. RDRS


• Operating Velocity (hope driven)vs. RDRS

Does that mean Spiritual Value is the starting point for Business Value?

With that said, I am sure, someone is asking – “does that mean, business value must always start with the spiritual value?” The answer is “IT DEPENDS”, as the spiritual value culture invariably precedes Purpose driven leadership (PDL) culture in most organizations, and so, it is fair to say that PDL can be sourced either from a “higher power” based spiritual leadership culture or from an emotional energy based leadership culture, as long as it has the three key ingredients of faith, love and hope. Nevertheless, our integrated “triune approach” is well positioned to bridge the missing link between business value and spiritual value regardless of the source of the spiritual value (higher power based and/or emotional energy based), as outlined in the picture on the top of the article. It so happens, our PDL leadership framework, equally works well for both realms of cultures i.e. higher power driven spiritual value culture and Emotional energy driven spiritual value culture, as outlined in the picture below as well.

Triune Purpose in action with real world examples…..

With that said, our research also suggests that leaders with a deep sense of spiritual value (or faith), tend to dream bigger visions, regardless of their source of inspiration (i.e. higher power based or emotional energy based) and those big visions are the ones that help them to create those futuristic experience pools (or market segments) which never had existed in the first place, as seen in the following 5 examples from 5 different walks of life-

• Colgate founder William Colgate, a farmer by occupation, venturing into the multi billion dollar Colgate empire, inspired by his Christian Faith –> Spiritual energy based.


• Aravind eye hospital founder Dr.G.Venkataswamy, revolutionizing eye care with a shop floor type business model, inspired by his Hindu faith based Seva Foundation roots –> Spiritual energy based


• Professor Muhammad Yunus, the Nobel Prize winner, founder of the Grameen Bank, and one of the pioneers of micro finance, being inspired by his Islamic concept of charity and faith –> Spiritual energy based.


• Alexander the great, with his emotional energy based faith, conquering most of the known world in his era –> Emotional energy based.


• Steve jobs with his emotional energy based faith, revolutionizing the mobile space –> Emotional energy based.

In all of these five examples, if at all there is a common denominator, it is the fact that these leaders have always started their extraordinary journeys, with a deep sense of faith (higher power based or emotional energy based) and that faith is the one that had eventually helped them to revolutionize the market place or world in a larger context. In other words, in all of these five cases, these revolutionists, ended up creating an experience pool (or market segment), which had never existed in the first place at all. Without going too much into all of their life achievements, let us take the most recent example of Steve Jobs (as he has been in the news a lot lately), and see how his emotional energy driven, faith based vision, helped him to create an experience pool (or market segment) which had never existed before, further reinforcing our triune purpose linkage theme, as shown below.

• Emotional energy driven faith ->big vision->bigger experience pool/market segment which never existed->higher CAGR/ROIC->higher business value

As we further look at Steve Job’s legacy, it is apparent that his “hope and love” part of the emotional energy system was working in perfect harmony with his faith part, every step of the way, especially while he was developing Apple’s futuristic experience pools. In other words, it was his hope part of the emotional energy system that gave him the “never give up” attitude, even when things were impossible for him to climb. Let’s us face it – no matter how we slice it, odds of him reaching to the top of the most innovative company on the face of this planet, were near zero, if not, totally impossible– first growing up in an adopted home, then dropping out of the college, which when was followed by a period when he had to collect soda cans for a single meal, which then was followed by a period of success, and then came the unjust ouster from Apple during his first stint and then the cancer – wow, what a ride! But then, in spite of all of those odds standing against him so high- he neither lost his hope nor his spirits - and in my humble opinion, that is what made him one of the great business leaders of this generation! Not only that, during all those difficult days - he never lost his Mojo or his love for his profession (and to humanity as well) – and in nutshell, he truly lived up to his own slogan – “Stay hungry and Stay foolish”.

Conclusion

In closing, let us conclude with this thought – our combined experience, along with a decade worth of research is showing us that most companies, historically, have succeeded, only when they have taken an integrated approach in discovering untapped growth opportunities. Time and time again, we run into situations, where many “near picture perfect growth strategies” and game changer type innovation plans, have often been put on hold (or stopped?), partly because, appropriate leadership traits, were not exhibited during critical junctures - which makes us to propose another slogan "Lead with the Purpose Culture, Strategize from the Core and Innovate with the Edge". As we further dissect this slogan – we see the following sequence of events happening in any untapped growth discovery initiative, as reiterated further, by our triune purpose driven approach -

• Lead with the PDL leadership framework, to help develop the purpose culture that is needed to set the cultural context and order from the chaos.


• Strategize with the PTV framework, to help establish the boundaries as “Core and Edge”, so that the firm can start strategizing from Core.


• Innovate with the PIP framework, to help innovate without boundaries, yet, with an initial focus of innovating with the edge.

With that said, let us summarize the article with a final quote –

• “THE ME”, one wants to be (Spiritual value) must be aligned with the “THEME” (Business Value), the company wants to be, so that the stakeholders can reap their value, when it is completely THEMED to be!”

The prerequisite for such a magical transformation, is all about us removing the “ME” from the “THE ME” space first and then together transforming it into the “THEMED” place– and that is where, our integrated TRIUNE PURPOSE driven approach, stands tall and bridges that missing link perfectly - as outlined in the picture on the top of the page!

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