I wanted to enjoy Michael Raynor’s THE STRATEGY PARADOX … but didn’t. Raynor is at the forefront of strategic business thought as a Distinguished Fellow with Deloitte Research and having co-written the classic book, THE INNOVATOR’S SOLUTION. He has lots of smart stuff to share. Unfortunately, Michael Raynor’s book is chock-full of too much business speak gobbly-gook for this marketer to comprehend.
After reading page 16, I gave up. I couldn’t understand the basic principles behind the book because Raynor’s reliance on using business speak gobbly-gook hindered my understanding.
I’ve read the following paragraph multiple times and still struggle to understand what Raynor is trying to communicate. This paragraph is supposed to serve as the summary for the book. However, it serves better as a prime example for how Raynor hinders understanding. Read for yourself and try to make sense of Raynor’s business speak gobbly-gook.
“The strategy paradox arises from the need to commit in the face of unavoidable uncertainty. The solution to the paradox is to separate the management of commitments from the management of uncertainty. Since uncertainty increases with the time horizon under consideration, the basis for allocation of decision making is the time horizon for which different levels of the hierarchy are responsible: the corporate office, responsible for the longest time horizon, must focus on managing uncertainty, while operating managers must focus on delivering on commitments. This is the principle of Requisite Uncertainty. A critically important tool in applying Requisite Uncertainty is Strategic Flexibility, a framework for identifying uncertainties and developing the options needed to mitigate risk or exploit opportunity.”[pg. 16, THE STRATEGY PARADOX]
Huh? What was that all about?
Well … as a public service project, I’ve spent time translating Raynor’s business speak hieroglyphics into everyday words. Some particulars might have been lost in translation so feel free to improve upon my translation in the comments section.
Businesses must make decisions today despite not knowing what the future will bring tomorrow. The business solution to this today/tomorrow paradox involves separating out the need to better understand year-over-year future uncertainties from the need to handle the day-to-day business activities.Businesses can better anticipate and act upon uncertainty by having “strategic-thinking” employees focused on the future and by having “tactical-doing” employees dedicated to managing the business on a day-to-day basis.
The process of overcoming the today/tomorrow paradox involves having “strategic-thinking” employees creating multiple scenarios of what the future may bring. From there, detailed menus of next-step options should be developed and when one of the future scenarios becomes reality, “tactical-doing” employees should act upon the appropriate next-step menu option.
Excellent work! Like you, I'm increasingly prone to toss a business book aside when the prose becomes so maze-like that I am forced to reread paragraphs (or entire pages!) just to understand what the author is trying to say.
That sort of workout leaves me so mentally exhausted that I don't have the energy for any real epiphanies. Which is whey I bother with this genre in the first place.
Personally, I've made a commitment to myself to read more fiction this summer. Too much of this hieroglyphic translation is not good for the brain or the soul.
Posted by: Marc Orchant | May 20, 2007 at 01:44 PM
John, that's a great translation of the most turbid writing I've ever seen. Nicely done on your part. I wonder if there's a market for rewrites of crappy, yet highly marketed, business books into readable English. Thanks for the laugh and for saving us the $30+ we would have plopped down for that kind of junk.
Posted by: Frank Roche | May 20, 2007 at 03:25 PM
To think...I had saw it and thought about it (buying it)...but now...not gonna happen. Thanks for saving me the bucks.
BTW...great work on translating cause I don't think I would have even put forth the energy...should have titled this post - "The Strategy Paradox - Lost in Translation".
Posted by: Jason Curlee | May 20, 2007 at 04:08 PM
If it was written in plain English, the amount of what is new versus what is not new might become too apparent. Thus the strategic publisher encouraged the tactical editors to be flexible with multisyllabic words and toungue-twisting copy.
Is it just me or are business books taking two divergent paths: MBA speak on one path and bite-size path on the other a la Who Moved My Cheese and Seth Godin's The Dip?
The question is, which genre would you prefer to see on the desk of your CEO?
Posted by: Andrew Bode | May 20, 2007 at 05:30 PM
Here's a shot...
Businesses need to worry about what to work on today and what to work on tomorrow. No one is qualified to do both. Therefore, some employees should be assigned to listing out the possible futures with a "to-do" list to make it happen. Other employees then pull out the to-do list when one of the futures happens.
Posted by: Paul Hebert | May 20, 2007 at 08:01 PM
Even simpler:
Many years ago, someone had to map out the projected city of Washington DC.
Then a bunch of others had to build it.
It's kinda like that...
Posted by: Steve Woodruff | May 21, 2007 at 08:28 AM
Paul ... nice translation.
Steve ... I like where you are going with the map of DC angle. Simple and smart.
Andrew ... I would like to see the Harvard Business Review on my CEO's desk along with a copy of THE DIP.
Jason & Frank ... glad I could save ya some scratch.
Marc ... kudos to you for having the goal of reading more fiction this summer. I just can't get into fiction. Maybe I should try though. A friend sent me two fiction books that I must make an attempt to read.
Posted by: johnmoore (from Brand Autopsy) | May 21, 2007 at 09:19 AM
Thanks for the clarification; my head hurts after reading the paragraph a couple of times. However, I think he was trying to get in two key items on the strategic thinking -
1. Risk management, looking at the uncertainty of the future
2. Centralization of strategic thinking in a corporate office - isn't this a point of failure for a number of orgs (Big 3 auto makers, a lot of governments in the 80s/90s, pre-Gerstner IBM, etc??)
Posted by: NW Guy | May 21, 2007 at 11:48 AM
Wow. Sounds like Chip Heath could have used this example for his WOMBAT3 slide on the "curse of knowledge"
Posted by: Steven C. | May 21, 2007 at 12:47 PM
The title told me all I needed to know--this guy can't communicate.
Posted by: Lewis Green | May 21, 2007 at 02:12 PM
Lewis ... what is it about the title that told you Michel Raynor can't communicate?
I think the title rocks ... "THE STRATGEY PARADOX: Why Committing to Success Leads to Failure (And What to Do About It)." This interesting book title got this reader interested. (Too bad the book's style was uninteresting.)
Posted by: johnmoore (from Brand Autopsy) | May 21, 2007 at 04:27 PM
At issue here is that this is very "duh" information and thus the author is using obfuscatory language to make it seem like he is saying something profound.
That aside for a moment, I skimmed the first chapter and found some thought provoking items there, namely the stuff about Sony.
Sony has found itself on the wrong side of several battles recently (recently that is in corporate glacial time). Four pretty significant items come to mind: Betamax, Mini-Disc, Walkman, and PS3. In each case, we see superior technology, (mostly) first-mover advantage, and solid adoption. Sony is a good execution company, certainly performing the requisite market assessment, due diligence, etc. So why the failures? It's easy to tick off the competing successes: VHS, CD, iPod, and XBOX (or wii). I'd be interested to know what went wrong, and more importantly, why did Sony's mitigation attempts not work? Certainly they were keen to not repeat the mistakes of the Betamax fiasco, yet seem to be struggling on the Blue Ray and PS3 fronts even today. And while I would not put PS3 and Blue Ray in the same camp as Betamax just yet, I am saying that it seems like they should be doing much, much better than they are.
Raynor seems to be saying that traditional approach has been to look at companies that have been wildly successful and compare them to companies that have not. In most cases, you'll see a company that placed a big bet that has paid off handsomely, and in the latter, a company that did nothing or very little - a risk-adverse approach. His hypothesis seems to be that there are companies like Sony that are behaving like the successful companies and yet not fully succeeding. I think the book is about exploring the ways in which these two types of companies diverge and to learn from them where they went wrong, as well as how to presently structure your firm for success in meeting today's goals and tomorrow's coming challenges.
That being said, the paragraph could have been worded in a much simpler and less pedantic manner.
Posted by: SAERandy | May 22, 2007 at 09:30 AM
I'd like to take a shot:
1. Business in these times is uncertain.
2. You need two kinds of people in the organization. One the strategic thinkers who're like the directors of the company. Executers or Managers who can put those 'visions' to work inside the company and bring about change to work with it.. blah blah!.
3. Plan for long term basis....not month to month..
Hold on... ERM!! isn't this what Management 101 teaches...
Posted by: Jag | May 22, 2007 at 10:06 AM
Edward de Bono said all of this in a comprehensive and clear style in his book Opportunity. Written a few decades ago, before business got in the business of BS. It's really a "duh" commentary on the different levels of corporate focus. Trees died for this? Lumberjacks sweat?
Posted by: ilfauno | May 22, 2007 at 03:38 PM
Most business books are dreadful. There may be a nugget or two of value but often too much cluttered nonsense to make it worth retrieving.
On the rare occasion that I come across a good business book or a good author, I post a quick 5-7 question interview with the author and then I hunt around for excerpts, podcasts, reviews etc which I compile to offer a quick summary.
Most recent was the restructuring story of Panasonic, by Francis McInerney.
I have a handful of good interviews with some great business authors (in my opinion) here:
http://www.ondisruption.com/my_weblog/books/index.html
Always open to new ideas.
Mike
www.OnDisruption.com
Posted by: Michael Urlocker | May 23, 2007 at 08:25 AM
I've read the book twice. The first time I got a good understanding of the basic arguments. The second time I got ammunition I've used in dozens of client situations over the past few months.
Any business book I've encountered in the past 30 years could be reduced to the kind of simplistic points made in this thread. But in doing so, nuance and value are lost.
This book made perfect sense to me.
Posted by: Anglico | May 27, 2007 at 09:51 PM
Forgot to add:
Fiction books are generally known as novels, unless they are collections of short stories, in which case they are known as collections of short stories.
Just saying.
Posted by: Anglico | May 27, 2007 at 09:54 PM
How strange to try to attempt a 'translation' of 'Strategy Paradox ' without an idea or any attempt at understanding what the nature of a paradox is- There is little mystery in why you thought Doctor Raynor's text had 'gobbly gook'. A book so clearly and powerfully written could only be seen as gobbly gook by someoone who has trouble defining the concept of paradox. For the rest of us, we'll enjoy and prosper from Raynor's genius.
Posted by: ATM | May 28, 2007 at 05:05 PM
Andrew Meister ... please share with us all some of the learnings you gleaned from Raynor's book. Sounds like you are an big-time fan of Raynor's work and I, for one, would appreciate learning from you.
Posted by: johnmoore (from Brand Autopsy) | May 28, 2007 at 07:13 PM
Dear John
Honestly buy it - it's genius - I'm an MBA JD - and I'm telling you this may the quintessential Business guide - Raynor has come out in a very clear and supported way and has pronounced much of the business success of so called - business gurus as luck - it flies in the face of accepted wisdom - there's no gook to it - but when someone dare's to challenge accepted dogma - he must be thorough in his documentation and analysis.
The Paradox is that by committing to strategies that may yeild the greatest potential for success in your business, you also, thereby expose yourself to the greatest probability of failure.
This goes far beyond separating arenas of responsibilities by time lines. Doc Raynor shows why success has happened and how to ensure its future without prognosticating, or reading tea leaves - and without relying on probabilities or luck.
Its clarity is its genius - but one glance at "the Starry Night" - reveals little - this work requires time and thought - a "Peanuts Cartoon" can be summed up by reading a chapter summary or the first chapter - want to understand better - read it>
Posted by: ATM | May 28, 2007 at 08:24 PM
Okay ... glad you got something outta the book which you will apply to your everyday business life. And I'm glad there are other business strategy books out there that I can appreciate and learn from just as you did with Raynor's book.
Posted by: johnmoore (from Brand Autopsy) | May 28, 2007 at 08:34 PM
I understood what he was trying to say, but I would have gone bald reading an entire book written that way.
Posted by: David | June 08, 2007 at 08:30 AM
Its surprising to me that a smart guy like Raynor doesn't appear to have the first clue about how to write. The underlying message was rather basic - life is uncertain, and uncertainty is greater over longer time periods, so have some people focus on long-term strategy and others focus on short-term execution. Duh.
Perhaps, recgonizing this, he felt the need to obfuscate as much as possible to sound more profound?
Just for fun, I put the excerpt through a plug-in called Bullfighter - ironically, originally developed by Deloitte. He didn't do so well, 3 of 10. Here's what the software said (no joke):
"Diagnosis: You overwhelmingly embrace obfuscation and don't want the reader to understand anything you have to say. Your writing lavishes a preponderance of dependent clauses and compound negatives upon the reader, whose cognitive load not infrequently exceeds the purported benefit of the substance of the article. Syntax incorporates numerous collections of items juxtaposed or in series that demand persistence and not a little unqualified expertise on the part of all intended recipients of the author's communications. In fact, such machinations inevitably prove detrimental to comprehension and sabotage the imparting of any and all knowledge. Your condition is irreversible."
Posted by: Ed Erickson | June 10, 2007 at 04:15 PM