Adapt to Win

Chapter 10Organizational Coherence

In my strategy consulting work, I often encounter clients whose organizations are not coherent. That sounds bad, and it is!

co-her-ent

adjective

(of an argument, theory, or policy) logical and consistent.

United as or forming a whole

The incoherence I encounter in these companies is a lack of logic and consistency between the company’s strategy relative to the way they implement their business models and operating models. Often there are also inconsistencies within and between elements of their business and operating models. Most of my client engagements are with clients who have already defined their strategy, at least at a high level: their vision, mission, and maybe some top-level objectives. They hire me to help them build the capabilities to realize their strategic objectives, but often we must refine their strategy to get good tractable answers to “where do we play” and “how do we win.” We develop good company OKRs so we can deploy the strategy effectively.

Often, in this process, there’s substantial “surprise” work required to get the company’s executives aligned with one another on their strategy (they often claim the senior execs are well aligned, when in fact they are not). The lack of alignment becomes evident while we’re drafting strategic objectives, usually as we’re driving toward decisions about where they play and how they win. Once the answers are coming into focus and decisions are being made explicit, conflict erupts. ...