Rethinking Strategy

CHAPTER 5 Overcoming myopia

Strategy requires a broad contextual outlook

In 2004 a story in The Roanoke Times led with a photograph of an obviously pregnant woman standing outside her home smoking a cigarette.¹ The story reported on complaints about a noisy road construction project that had been disrupting local traffic. The photo caption noted the woman’s concern about the effect of exposing her unborn child to the sound of jackhammers. The story remained a local issue. The photo went viral around the world.

And so it is for organisations; myopia causes us to miss vital signals that are sometimes literally under our noses. While attention tends to focus on the obvious, the ‘noisiest’, the here and now, at the same time, less obvious changes holding future significance tend to pass unnoticed until it’s too late. And why is this? Because passion is a vortex.

Senior managers are passionate people who become absorbed in their job. They get up at 5 am to send and reply to emails. They arrive at work early and are often among the last to leave. They make and take business calls late at night, on their holidays and at weekends. And they socialise with colleagues into the evening, taking every opportunity to talk all things ‘work’. This passion and hard work underpins their career success. It’s what they’re admired for by their peers, and they wear it as a badge of honour. Yet passion is the foundation of industry myopia.

Managers are also industry experts. It’s this expertise that ...