The Strategy Pathfinder, 3rd Edition

12The Maverick: Six Senses of Strategy

What does an organisation’s building say about its strategy? Does it matter if it is enclosed in a quirky historic building or located in a tower block? Modern art on the wall or old masters? Hushed tones or loud “muzak”? Leather Chesterfields or Ikea? A musty old book smell or refreshing Jasmine? What does a CEO say about an organisation’s strategy? Does it matter if …

John Harvey-Jones

In each edition of The Strategy Pathfinder we have tried to do something a little different in the final section. In the first two editions, we used this “Maverick” section to outline new horizons in strategy and other related fields. In this edition, we encompass many such new developments in a new way of sensing strategy, something we call “Sensography”¹ and a related framework for categorising and evaluating these observations, the Six Senses of Strategy Wheel. We outline these concepts and frameworks and the thinking behind them in the paragraphs and images that follow.

Our Six Senses of Strategy framework, and the sensographic approach that underpins it, is based on our many decades of advising organisations, assessing their strategies and helping with suggesting options. Approaching their buildings for the first time, we have often sensed their strategies before meeting anyone at all – the clues lie all around. Rather like detectives trying to piece together what we are looking at, we realise that the choice of buildings, their location, the pictures ...