Strategic Management by Project Group: Lessons Learned

A NUMBER of years ago I asked a group of senior managers to outline the problems that they experienced with the strategy process in their organizations. There was a wide range of responses, but essentially they clustered into four main groupings. I call this the strategy development problem. It still seems extraordinary in this age of sophisticated management development, that senior managers are saying this. But it is still the reality, particularly where, as a result of delayering, we have a younger generation of senior managers suddenly finding themselves rapidly promoted up into board management strategic positions. These people have survived the rat-race by being doers and suddenly find themselves having to think strategically, having to think in the abstract, having to think long term. They are struggling with the very idea of strategy itself, and finding that they alone as a top team cannot comprehend all the complexity involved.