From Small Actions to Big Wins with Emergent Strategy
Hello , This week, I want to share three interesting and relevant topics to inspire you and give you some food for thought.
I hope you find this week’s newsletter both insightful and valuable, with ideas that inspire you to explore them in more detail. Unlocking Strategic Success: The Emergent Approach to Strategy Traditional strategy often falls short for those transitioning into new ventures or reassessing their careers. Exhaustive, rigid plans are almost overkill and feel disconnected from the practical realities of running a small independent business. Having worked with a mentor for many years, we often searched for frameworks to organise ideas and simplify business complexities. This is what attracted me to Peter Compo’s emergent approach to strategy. Peter’s book, The Emergent Approach to Strategy: Adaptive Design and Execution, presents a framework for navigating alternative business paths. His approach encourages us to think deeply about our futures and provides a structured way to move forward with focus and discipline. Peter joined me as guest #62 on the podcast. He shared unique insights from his 25-year career at DuPont, during which he learned how small, everyday actions can drive significant outcomes. Small Actions, Big Impact Peter's approach is based on the belief that meaningful opportunities often arise from small, daily actions. Instead, valuing the cumulative effect of micro-decisions. Start with the Aspiration Peter emphasises that every strategy begins with articulating an aspiration. These aspirations come in three forms:
You can use one or all three to articulate your aspiration, but what it does is offer the clarity of what is meaningful to you. The next step to make meaningful progress requires concrete steps to bring your vision to life. Avoid the Cascade of Sub-Goals A common pitfall in planning is creating long lists of sub-goals, often called cascading. Endless tasks may keep you busy, but they don’t necessarily lead to progress. Peter advises you to focus on bottlenecks—the key obstacles that block your progress toward your aspirations. Rather than getting bogged down in tasks, ask: “What’s in the way?” Bottlenecks represent constraints, and solving them is where true progress begins. Peter explains that removing the bottleneck unlocks potential. Without addressing it, no amount of task completion will lead to meaningful results. Visualising Strategy: The Role of Influence Diagrams Once you’ve identified the bottleneck, the next step is visualising how to overcome it. Peter recommends using influence diagrams—a tool that maps actions and decisions, showing how each directly addresses the bottleneck. Imagine your aspiration on the right side of a diagram, with a V-shaped funnel expanding leftward. The wide end represents possible actions, but not all are equally valuable. The key is to target the actions that directly address the bottleneck. Influence diagrams help you visualise the steps that will move you toward achieving your aspiration. Killer Problems and the Reality of Delayed Results Even with a clear plan, results often take time to materialise. This gap between action and outcome is one of the killer problems. Delays and unpredictable factors like market shifts or new regulations complicate execution. The solution lies in adaptability. Your strategy must adjust as circumstances change, allowing you to realign your focus with shifting conditions. The Strategy Triad: Aspiration, Bottleneck, and Central Rule Peter’s framework centres around three essential elements:
An effective strategy integrates these elements. Removing the bottleneck allows you to progress toward your aspiration. The central rule helps you prioritise what matters most and ignore distractions. Peter’s core advice: Say no to distractions. Stick to your central rule and avoid shiny tasks that divert your attention. Creativity and Innovation: Solving the Puzzle of Strategy The emergent approach thrives on problem-solving. Addressing bottlenecks and managing delays unlocks meaningful progress. Closing Thought: Strategy as Onetime Practice Peter reminds us that strategy isn’t a one-time plan. It’s an ongoing practice of adapting, evolving, and finding creative solutions. For the self-employed, this means staying flexible, focusing on core goals, and refining your approach to ensure your business grows through uncertainty. The best strategies aren’t rigid plans but adaptive frameworks built around creative problem-solving. Charles Handy, my favourite business philosopher and thinker, shares a simple yet powerful lesson from his time in Ireland. Given directions to a destination, Handy was told that if he reached Davy’s Bar, he had already missed his turn—the correct turnoff was just before the bar. This became a metaphor for his “Second Curve” concept: the best time to make an important shift in life and business is before you reach the wrong destination. This lesson is particularly relevant for self-employed professionals. After years of building careers and businesses, many of us reach a point where change is inevitable. But waiting too long can mean missing the optimal moment to pivot. The key is to anticipate when your current path is nearing its peak and make a proactive turn before decline sets in. Leanne Shelton, my guest on episode #59 of the Wisepreneurs Podcast, did just that when she realised AI's impact on her copywriting business. Peter Compo's emergent approach to strategy is one way to evaluate your current state, and my next guest, Tonianne DeMaria shares her workflow technique to help you make the change happen and improve your effectiveness. Tonianne DeMaria, co-author of Personal Kanban: Mapping Work | Navigating Life, offers us her expertise in visual management systems, which are essential tools for self-employed professionals. In this week’s Wisepreneurs Podcast, Tonianne highlights the importance of visualising tasks, setting manageable work limits, and adopting a human-centred approach to productivity. These steps are crucial for avoiding burnout and staying organised. Listen to this Friday's episode to discover how you can manage your workload more efficiently, increase productivity, and create lasting value—all while nurturing creativity and maintaining focus—essential for success at any stage of life. Nigel Rawlins Check out all the Wisepreneurs Podcasts here: |
