Strategy and Emotions

Category:Connections,Emotions,Fear,Leadership,Opportunity,Strategy

Strategy and emotions? Those are generally considered as two separate domains with little, if any, intersection. I’ve come to believe that they need to be tightly integrated, especially in a rapidly changing world.

Strategy

Strategy in the business world has long been defined by the five-year plan. Develop a detailed plan for each of the five years and you have a winning strategy. In developing this plan, the advice is to focus on your competitors and how you are going to prevent them from gaining ground in your markets.

I have been fortunate to work with some of the most successful tech companies in Silicon Valley. I discovered that they have a very different approach to strategy which they pursue instinctively. I call this approach to strategy Zoom Out/Zoom In, which I have written about extensively here.

This approach to strategy focuses on two time horizons. The first time horizon, Zoom Out, focuses on 10-20 years. On that horizon, the key question is: what really significant opportunity is emerging where we could create exponentially more value than we do today?

The second time horizon, Zoom In, focuses on 6-12 months. On that horizon, there are several key questions. First, what 2-3 initiatives (no more) could we pursue in the next 6-12 months that would have the greatest potential to accelerate our progress in addressing the longer-term significant opportunity that we have identified? Second, have we committed a critical mass of resources to those 2-3 initiatives in the next 6-12 months? Third, what are the metrics we could use to assess our progress as these initiatives unfold?

This approach to strategy can be very powerful within the organization, but it can also provide the foundation for framing an opportunity-based narrative. This narrative can inspire and motivate customers and other stakeholders outside the organization. In a future post, I will explore this untapped potential.

Emotions

OK, so what does this approach to strategy have to do with emotions? I’ve found it has a profound effect on emotions. If we look ahead into the future and can identify a really large and inspiring opportunity that we can address, it helps participants to overcome fear and cultivate excitement about addressing the opportunity.

Of course, many people driven by fear will tend to dismiss descriptions of long-term opportunities as a fantasy. They will want to focus on the present and not be distracted by the future. But if you can show significant, tangible progress over the next 6-12 months in addressing this opportunity, the skepticism will tend to diminish and be replaced by excitement.

Why does this matter?

We live in a world where people are increasingly consumed by the emotion of fear. I have written about this extensively in my most recent book, The Journey Beyond Fear. While the emotion of fear is very understandable in a world of mounting performance pressure, it is also a very limiting emotion and tends to drive people into a doom loop.

In the book, based on extensive research I have done, I outline a journey that can move people beyond fear and cultivate emotions that will help people to achieve much greater impact that is meaningful to them and to others. Leaders of large organizations around the world need to recognize how the emotion of fear is holding participants in their organizations back and find ways to help participants to overcome their fear.

They need to recognize that strategy and emotions are tightly connected. If they focus on five-year plans that emphasize the need to address the threat from competitors, that will tend to intensify the fear. Leaders often seek to drive change by adopting the “burning platform” metaphor – we’re on a burning platform that is about to collapse so we need to move quickly to preserve our platform. That certainly helps to feed the fear.

On the other hand, if they adopt a Zoom Out/Zoom In approach to strategy, they will unleash some powerful forces to move people beyond fear. This approach will help participants to build excitement about the exponentially expanding opportunities that exist in the future. In my book, I discuss the untapped potential of a very specific form of passion – the passion of the explorer. I believe that this exists within all of us, but few of us have made an effort to find it, much less pursue it. Strategy, properly framed and executed, can help all of us to find and pursue the passion of the explorer.

Is that all?

So far, I’ve been talking about strategy in an organizational context. But there’s so much more. We can all embrace the Zoom Out/Zoom In approach to strategy at a personal level. What’s the really big emerging opportunity that each of us could address over the next 10-20 years that would help us to achieve much more impact that is meaningful to us and to others? What specific actions can we take in the next 6-12 months to make progress in addressing this really big opportunity?

This approach could help all of us to overcome our fear. As individuals, more and more people are focused on how threatening the future is and this intensifies our fear. If we can shift our view of the future from threat to opportunity and start to make real progress in addressing that opportunity, we will overcome our fear and draw out the passion of the explorer that can provide the fuel to move forward in a much more positive and fulfilling way.

Bottom line

Let’s break down the silos. Strategy and emotions are intimately connected. We need to embrace approaches to strategy that can help us to overcome fear and cultivate the passion of the explorer. This has so much potential, both at an organizational and individual level.