Perry Maddox explores the traps in creating strategy and explains how leaders can use the three horizons model to build lasting change.
Our sector loves a strategy.
And a strategy launch. There will be coffee, cookies and networking, of course.
Funny thing is, nobody really cares too much about that new strategy.
They mostly come for the cookies.
How We Get Strategy Wrong.
Like an office needs coffee, leaders need strategies.
Global strategies, national strategies, fundraising strategies, HR strategies, you name it.
Strategies can be great. They are a useful tool for setting long term priorities, for communicating direction and for guiding resource allocation.
The problem is that we often get them so wrong. Over the years, I’ve come to see one big pattern in flawed strategy development.
I call it the A to B problem.
Most strategy documents begin with a problem statement of some sort. A few pages later come the outcomes and impact that the strategy will create. Problem, meet solution. We call the “after” world “our vision,” then we set out a strategic course of action and explain how we will get there.
And so we lay out our strategies as “pre” to “post”, before to after, A to B.
As if the world simply changes from A to B.
Embrace Three Horizons of Strategic Change.
Change comes in waves.
The world doesn’t change from A to B, no matter how much we want it to. Change is messy in real life. Our world doesn’t stop changing at B. It goes on to C, then D, E, F and so on. Our strategic landscape is always changing, and so must our strategy.
Enter the Three Horizons model, depicted below.
Nothing lasts forever.
The key to the three horizons is to understand that change comes in waves.
The original three horizons model shows how changes happen in the world. Adapting that thinking into the context of our work and strategies, we emerge with three horizons too:
- Horizon 1 is our current way of working. This is how we deliver impact now. It’s how we generate the money to keep the lights on, today. But as the world changes, our current approaches become less relevant over time.
- Horizon 2 is the entrepreneurial horizon. Here we expand and experiment. Through both small adjustments and through transformational experiments, Horizon 2 is where new ideas and trials shift our thinking and transition our ways of working toward…
- Horizon 3, a visionary, viable future. Here we see entirely new possibilities and approaches that will transform what we do and how we work in the future.
And change continues after that, into Horizons 4, 5, etc.
This framework helps us to structure our thinking about the future. Reflecting how change happens in our world, it helps us understand how the way we do things (i.e. organizational strategy or business models) also changes both in relevance and prevalence over time.
Rather than building A to B strategy, leaders are called to ensure that our strategies thrive across all 3 horizons:
- Delivering proven models and approaches with quality now,
- Experimenting and testing new ideas that will transform us, and
- Planting the seeds today for radically different models that will reshape us for a different world of the future.
Set Strategy across Three Horizons.
The Three Horizons model can be a lot to digest.
Worry not.
It simply calls us as leaders to recognise that the world is constantly changing and always will. The best strategy prepares for those waves of change.
So rather than replacing our glossy strategy PDF every 5 years, we are called to build organisations, teams and strategies that adapt and evolve with a changing world.
And as leaders, we are called to explicitly lead strategy across all three horizons:
- H1: Defending, extending & improving our current work to maximize impact while we can. But we can’t hold on too tight, as change is inevitable. We must identify H1 elements worth keeping and be willing to let the rest go.
- H2: Exploring, expanding & developing opportunities and potential new future approaches. We build here through incremental changes now and through transformational experiments to inform and to shape our future work.
- H3: Rather than waiting for the future to materialize, we seed pockets of the future now: investing into new approaches; into research, development and new ventures; and, protecting our creatives and visionaries.
Is the three horizons model messier than simply creating a new strategy every 5 years?
Yes.
But instead of false comfort, it gives us real clarity on how to strategically evolve and navigate change. That’s the difference between real strategy and the kind that gets often launched in stakeholder workshops.
Now enjoy those cookies.
