At the moment I am quite focused on questions of strategy. I’m doing some work that is right in the middle of trying to make one aspect of a particular inter-organisational strategy actually work. My task at the moment is to wade through all of the documentation so far and sort what has been agreed, what has been done, what still needs to be done and and what is still open for further discussion and specification. Several things are striking me as I do this:

  1. How difficult it would have been to have specified all of this in advance. Some of it is quite clear. Other bits (generally the parts that were not central to the key players interests and concerns at the beginning) are quite murky – although it’s usually pretty clear what the general intent was.
  2. As this strategy is breaking new ground there are quite a few instances where the use of language (words and phrases) that have been understood in a particular way in the past is proving to be a difficulty. Nonetheless I suspect that “inventing” a whole new language would have been silly and most likely would have led to many very unproductive discussions – or perhaps would have been a major stumbling block to reaching agreement in the first place.
  3. What’s happening as a consequence of this difference in language though is quite interesting. A tension seems to be developing between those who are calling for clear and precise definition of terms and clear descriptions of everything under the sun and those who are less vocal but who seem to be seeing this more as an opportunity to iteratively shape a different understanding of the familiar, not because they are seeking whole-scale change but because they perceive that they are trying to do something that is similar to things that have been done in the past, but set in a significantly different context. And therefore crucially different both in intent and potential outcome.
  4. I’m also observing another tension – perhaps even an elephant in the room! We are “making this up as we go” in the most positive of senses. For many people this is both incredibly uncomfortable and unspeakable.
  5. What is apparent to me is that this strategy will only work if and when all parties agree. At each level at which the strategy needs to operate new agreements have to be created, tested and iteratively developed. No single person or group can define it all in advance because it all depends on how other people and groups respond. So the whole process is operating like a big conversation. Someone says something, others respond and gradually a way of acting together emerges.

The situation I have described is a pretty good example of some questions that are occupying quite a bit of my thinking at the moment:

  1. What do we need to be able to do (or perhaps who and how do we need to be) in order the operate successfully in situations and context that seem to call for a mix of ordered responses  based on patterns we have identified in prior experience of similar situations and unique responses to events that seem to be occurring for the first time?
  2. Where is it best to focus our attention – on the patterns and lessons of the past (ie learning from experience), or on developing new capacities to “make things up as we go”? In these circumstances what might we gain or lose? Is there a middle ground?

More of this soon!

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