Go for Bold: How to Create Powerful Strategy in Uncertain Times - Softcover

Yeo, Rosie

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1922611301 ISBN 13: 9781922611307

Verlag: Major Street Publishing, 2022

Inhaltsangabe

A new approach to designing simple and powerful strategy by harnessing organizational talent and creativity.

Strategy is important, but it’s not easy to come up with fresh ideas needed for success, let alone bring them to life. Uncertainty about the future, the pressure of competition, risk aversion, and those boring planning meetings employees sit through sap confidence and enthusiasm and produce timid templates for maintaining status quo.

This book offers a new approach to designing strategy. It shows how to inspire others to think differently long-term, work through challenging issues constructively, and ultimately become committed to an ambitious, shared future for your organization. Leading strategist Rosie Yeo reveals how to find answers to big questions by unleashing team creativity to hone in on what is most important and map a bold pathway to success.

For leaders, aspiring leaders and anyone who needs a future plan, Go For Bold offers a fresh take on the creative collaboration needed to design, implement and achieve your organization’s growth and other success metrics.

Über diesen Titel

Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Rosie Yeo MBA (Exec) is known as a strategy alchemist because of her skill in helping leaders and teams collectively imagine and achieve a better future. She designs and facilitates strategic planning in boardrooms and executive offsites as well as injecting energy and focus into larger meetings and complex stakeholder consultations. Rosie's experience in politics, public affairs, as a board director and corporate adviser provides a unique blend of commercial and policy sense. She has woven her magic for private, public and government organizations around the world.

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Introduction
It’s late on a Friday night in early March 2020. Glenn Keys, founder and Executive Chairman of Aspen Medical, is sitting with his chief financial officer in their sleek, industrial-style Canberra headquarters. Open on the screen in front of them are the company’s bank accounts and Glenn’s personal accounts, and the CFO is waiting on Glenn’s decision:
‘I can make this deposit, but I have to drain every single account. We will have nothing left.’
Most of us had no idea at this stage how the emerging global pandemic would impact the world, but Aspen Medical, expert in delivering healthcare in the toughest situations around the globe, was ahead of the curve in understanding the scale of the challenge. Sourcing personal protective equipment (PPE) for the safety of healthcare staff and the community was going to be a major priority, and the contest for supplies was already fierce.
Glenn had the opportunity to confirm an order worth hundreds of millions of dollars for PPE on behalf of the Australian Government, but there was no time to lose. Without payment of a sizeable deposit by midnight, the order would lapse, and there were a lot of other countries in the wings desperate to secure PPE.
The speed of the deal meant there was no contract in place. Glenn had received an email from a high-level government contact confirming the government’s request to obtain supplies, but there was no other paperwork and Aspen Medical would have to pay the full deposit.
Glenn considered what was at stake:
‘If this goes wrong, it’s the end of the company – but I am confident it’s not going to go wrong.’
He made the decision:
‘Okay, pay the lot.’
It was a long Friday night. Once the money had left the accounts, he
headed home and drank a glass of wine with his wife Mel while they
waited. A call from a government adviser at 11.30 p.m. heightened
his anxiety, as more questions were being asked. It appeared that the
deal may still not yet be formally approved.
Fifteen minutes after midnight, Glenn received a call confirming
that the government paperwork had been signed.
Glenn told me he shocked the government adviser (and his wife,
who could hear the conversation) by saying:
‘“I’ve got to tell you, I almost wet myself when I got your
initial call this evening.” My wife was standing there going:
“Why would you say that?” And I said, “Because it’s true.
I wanted to let them know how personal this was.”’
I’ve been privileged to work with Glenn on a few projects over the
past few years and I’ve learnt a lot from observing him identify and
analyse opportunities, weigh up risks and how to mitigate them, and
make bold decisions. He highlights the importance of open thinking
(not narrowing in too quickly on one option), careful analysis and
clarity before making decisions.

What a pandemic revealed about our approach to strategy

Looking back, it’s extraordinary how nimbly we responded to the global and local crises caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. Health services rolled out rapid COVID-19 testing sites across populations; the acceleration of telehealth consultations saw Australia’s Health Minister boast that a ten-year plan for telehealth had been implemented within ten days;1 and major organisations transitioned to working from home in a matter of weeks.
Our experience in 2020 and 2021 showed us we could be more adaptable, even creative, in a crisis. We were forced into making faster decisions, changing the way we do things and even what we do.
We threw some planning structures out the window
Some people loved the freedom that the pandemic offered in regard to planning. Herman Spruit, a London-based management consultant at Bain & Company, saw some surprising upsides when the pandemic disrupted fixed planning cycles:
‘When CEOs describe what they liked during lockdown, they basically say, “Without our planning systems, it all became so simple. Some meetings were about doing stuff. We just sorted out jobs to do, agreed on a playbook and just did it. And in other meetings, we understood the need to invent. We formed the right teams and started experimenting.’’’2
Our horizons narrowed and we lost confidence in planning for the long term
When I’m creating strategic plans with organisations, we normally focus on a three-year horizon, or sometimes five years, or even up
to twenty years ahead. But in 2020 and 2021, many of my corporate,
non-profit and association clients were saying the same thing:
‘We just need to survive the next six to twelve months;
we’ll worry about the future later!’
While some welcomed the opportunity to shake things up and
abandon the strictures of rigid planning cycles, I also saw many
organisations lose confidence in their ability to plan for the long
term. In many ways, that made perfect sense. We all saw the ground
rules shift constantly, with restrictions, border closures and ongoing
uncertainty preventing many organisations from looking ahead
with confidence. People and organisations suffered from the immediate
impacts of unprecedented lockdowns, and months into the
pandemic many organisations still could not see the way through.
Government financial support and temporary changes to
corporate insolvency provisions cushioned the immediate impact
of the pandemic. (The number of companies entering external
administration in Australia actually decreased by 47 per cent for the
year to May 2021 compared with the prior year.3) However, longterm
concerns remain about the viability of many organisations that
have struggled through two tough years.
Now, we feel more uncertain
In Australia, we were fortunate to avoid the massive toll of death
and illness experienced by many countries during the first year
of the pandemic. Nonetheless, through 2021, we were living with
uncertainty. For much of the year our population was largely
unvaccinated, our largest cities entered long lockdowns and we
remained locked off from the world through border closures,
without a clear timetable for reopening. So, it’s not surprising that people continued to avoid those long-term discussions.
But here’s another perspective: there’s always been uncertainty about the future – always. We’ve never been able to control everything; we just used to think we could!
The jolt into the unknown through the COVID-19 pandemic has been a sobering reminder that circumstances are always shifting. Our operating environment, our customers and our own organisations change over time, sometimes abruptly. That doesn’t mean we give up on strategy, though – it underlines the importance of learning how to be strategic together.
We need to reach shared, powerful agreements about our long game, because that is how our organisations will maintain the resilience to keep moving forward despite upheaval.
Bold strategy is uncomfortable
Look up ‘boldness’ in your choice of dictionary and you’ll find it defined as a willingness to take risks, an indication of confidence, courage, even fearlessness. Look at many organisations today and those words may not be the first descriptors that come to mind! (We look at why this is in chapter 1.)
Creating groundbreaking strategy is not easy. We must challenge our ideas of what’s possible, what’s likely and what’s important. We need to choose to do new things, and sometimes to choose to stop doing things we’ve always done. Sometimes, we need to go out on a limb.
But when we create big...

Details zur Ausgabe

• Verlag: Major Street Publishing
• Erscheinungsdatum: 2022
• Sprache: Englisch
• ISBN 10: 1922611301
• ISBN 13: 9781922611307
• Einband: Taschenbuch
• Anzahl der Seiten: 172
• Kontakt zum Hersteller: Nicht verfügbar
• Verantwortliche Person: preigu; mail@preigu.de; ; Lengericher Landstr. 19; Osnabrück; 49078; Deutschland