Leading for Innovation: And Organizing for Results

13.2. Adopt a Strategy Geared to Action

Abandon the notion that leaders can plan their way to success, and instead adopt a directionally correct strategy geared to action and adjustment by all employees.

The death knell of comprehensive multiyear strategic plans tolled throughout the last few years, as discontinuous technology change and shifting competitive rules became the norm. Indeed such plans may even blind leaders to new opportunities and tie up resources on projects that no longer make financial sense. As Sir John Browne of BP Amoco says, "No advantage and no success is ever permanent. The winners are those who keep moving." Instead of developing and managing toward a detailed plan, leaders need to articulate vivid images of the future, ...