This website or its third-party tools use cookies which are necessary to its functioning and required to improve your experience. By clicking the consent button, you agree to allow the site to use, collect and/or store cookies.
Please click the consent button to view this website.
I accept
Deny cookies Go Back

Intelligent Management

Deming and Theory of Constraints for CEOs and Executive Teams for the Age of Complexity. Ess3ntial Critical Chain Project Management

  • THE DECALOGUE METHOD
    • The Problem for Every Business
    • The Systemic Solution
    • synchronize competencies
    • How It Works
    • business insight and foresight through systemic cause and effect reasoning
    • Our Education Modules for Systemic Management
  • about us
    • the founders
    • Dr. Domenico Lepore
    • Intelligent Management Success Stories
    • Our Books
    • Clients
    • Expanding Spiral of Positive Systemic Results with Intelligent Management
  • blog & books
    • Blog Theory of Constraints and Deming
    • Our publications
  • ITALIA
  • Contact
You are here: Home / Systems Thinking / Fixing Strategy Failure – a Systems View

Apr 05 2018

Fixing Strategy Failure – a Systems View

In an article about strategy and execution, Roger Martin, in 2017  named the world’s #1 management thinker by Thinkers50, wrote in the Harvard Business Review:

“To fix our problem with strategy failure, we need to stop thinking in terms of the brain-to-body metaphor. Instead, we should conceive of the corporation as a white-water river in which choices cascade from the top to the bottom.”

Roger Martin does well to identify a disconnect between strategy and execution. However, it is interesting that when he does so, his criticism is still firmly embedded in a language of traditional, top-down hierarchy.

When organizations are run in a traditional hierarchical/functional manner, then inevitably silos are created. The various elements of the organization that are there to deliver the purpose for which the organization exists are artificially divided and experience a lack of flow. No wonder strategy and execution become fragmented and lose their sense.

A new management science

The problem is that so many organizations lag behind in their understanding of complex reality. Thanks to new science, we have a much deeper understanding of how nature, at every level, works. This new understanding is systemic. Life, as we experience it on this planet at every level, is based on interdependencies and interconnections. We exist, as Fritjof Capra has brilliantly pointed out, within a “web of life”, a network of interdependencies. Absorbing and applying this knowledge to management is what will take us to a new level in the ability to deliver the purpose of an organization.

Systemic transformation

The starting point for the shift in overcoming the artificial barriers in structure and actions is in our thinking. Leaders and managers need to think systemically. They need to learn to link together three faculties of the intellect to remain at the helm of the transformation process:

  1. The ability to generate new ideas (intuition);
  2. the ability to understand the full spectrum of implications of these newly developed ideas (understanding);
  3. the ability to design and execute a plan consistent with this understanding (knowledge).

In order to produce results, this systemic intelligence has to be complemented by a rigorous method of investigation that is typical of science. Dr. Edwards Deming embedded this rigorousness into the PDSA (Plan, Do, Study, Act) cycle and its statistical underpinnings.

Systemic structure

Last, but not least, systemic intelligence and PDSA have to be supported by a consistent organizational structure. Such a structure must be systemic in nature; this allows us to overcome the strictures of the traditional hierarchical/functional organization and to free individuals from the prison of wrong interdependencies.

We can do that practically by:

1. building interdependent processes managed through the control of variation

2. subordinating these interdependencies to a strategically chosen element of the system called constraint

3. designing the organization as a network of interdependent projects with a goal

The problem is not, as Roger Martin seems to suggest, the prevailing view of strategy. It’s the prevailing style of management. It is not about upstream and downstream or above and below. No amount of good intentions or techniques will fix the problem. It is about thinking, understanding and implementing in a systemic way and creating an interconnected continuum.

It’s a whole new world.

Sign up to our blog here and shift your thinking towards broader, systemic possibilities for yourself and your organization. Intelligent Management provides education and training  on systemic management, W. Edwards Deming’s management philosophy and the Theory of Constraints  (Decalogue methodology) in North America and Europe.

About the Blog Author and Editor

Angela Montgomery Ph.D. is Partner and Co-founder of Intelligent Management and author of the business novel+ website  The Human Constraint that has sold in over 20 countries. She is co-author with Dr. Domenico Lepore, founder, and Dr. Giovanni Siepe of  ‘Quality, Involvement, Flow: The Systemic Organization’  from CRC Press, New York.

Written by angela montgomery · Categorized: Systems Thinking, systems view of the world · Tagged: PDSA, strategy, systemic structure, systemic transformation, systems view

Search Form

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Sign Up For Our Systems View Blog!

Fields marked with a * are required.

Search Form

Recent Posts

  • Improving Flow Company Wide – A Systemic Approach Part 9 August 3, 2022
  • Why Your Organization’s Constraints are the Key to Success – A Systemic Approach Part 8 July 29, 2022
  • Working with Variation to Support Good Decision Making – A Systemic Approach Part 7 July 20, 2022
  • Create Stability and Predictability in Your Organization by Understanding Variation – A Systemic Approach Part 6 July 9, 2022
  • Leadership for Complex Times – A Systemic Approach Part 5 July 3, 2022
  • How to Drastically Improve Company Results Through Healthy Interactions – A Systemic Approach Part 4 June 16, 2022
  • How to Make the Best Decisions for Your Company and Measure What Matters – A Systemic Approach Part 3 June 2, 2022
  • Interdependencies and Establishing the Goal of Your Organization – A Systemic Approach Part 2 May 26, 2022
  • Radically Improving Organizational Performance – a Systemic Approach May 18, 2022
  • How to Put an End to Meaningless Meetings: an Operational Process May 5, 2022
  • Time for a Project Management Revolution – PMI Interviews Domenico Lepore April 22, 2022
  • Don’t Get Stuck on the Path to Change – Leverage Your Human Constraint April 17, 2022
  • The Transformational Method Behind an Economic Miracle We Can All Apply April 1, 2022
  • Goldman Sachs is WRONG About Managing Remote Work March 24, 2022
  • Systemic Leaders Who Get the Big Picture – Here’s How March 16, 2022

Social Icons

  • LinkedIn
  • Twitter
  • Vimeo

Archives

  • August 2022
  • July 2022
  • June 2022
  • May 2022
  • April 2022
  • March 2022
  • February 2022
  • January 2022
  • December 2021
  • November 2021
  • October 2021
  • September 2021
  • August 2021
  • July 2021
  • June 2021
  • May 2021
  • April 2021
  • March 2021
  • February 2021
  • January 2021
  • December 2020
  • November 2020
  • October 2020
  • September 2020
  • July 2020
  • June 2020
  • May 2020
  • April 2020
  • March 2020
  • February 2020
  • January 2020
  • December 2019
  • November 2019
  • October 2019
  • September 2019
  • August 2019
  • July 2019
  • June 2019
  • May 2019
  • April 2019
  • March 2019
  • February 2019
  • January 2019
  • December 2018
  • November 2018
  • October 2018
  • September 2018
  • August 2018
  • July 2018
  • June 2018
  • May 2018
  • April 2018
  • March 2018
  • February 2018
  • January 2018
  • December 2017
  • November 2017
  • October 2017
  • September 2017
  • August 2017
  • July 2017
  • June 2017
  • May 2017
  • April 2017
  • March 2017
  • February 2017
  • January 2017
  • December 2016
  • November 2016
  • October 2016
  • September 2016
  • August 2016
  • July 2016
  • June 2016
  • May 2016
  • April 2016
  • March 2016
  • February 2016
  • January 2016
  • December 2015
  • November 2015
  • October 2015
  • September 2015
  • August 2015
  • July 2015
  • June 2015
  • May 2015
  • April 2015
  • March 2015
  • February 2015
  • January 2015
  • December 2014
  • November 2014
  • October 2014
  • September 2014
  • August 2014
  • July 2014
  • March 2014
  • February 2014
  • January 2014
  • November 2013
  • October 2013
  • September 2013
  • August 2013
  • March 2013
  • February 2013
  • December 2012
  • November 2012
  • October 2012
  • September 2012
  • August 2012
  • July 2012
  • June 2012
  • May 2012
  • April 2012
  • March 2012
  • February 2012
  • January 2012
  • December 2011
  • November 2011
  • October 2011
  • September 2011

Our Blog

  • Improving Flow Company Wide – A Systemic Approach Part 9
  • Why Your Organization’s Constraints are the Key to Success – A Systemic Approach Part 8
  • Working with Variation to Support Good Decision Making – A Systemic Approach Part 7
  • Create Stability and Predictability in Your Organization by Understanding Variation – A Systemic Approach Part 6
  • Leadership for Complex Times – A Systemic Approach Part 5

Recent Posts

  • Improving Flow Company Wide – A Systemic Approach Part 9 August 3, 2022
  • Why Your Organization’s Constraints are the Key to Success – A Systemic Approach Part 8 July 29, 2022
  • Working with Variation to Support Good Decision Making – A Systemic Approach Part 7 July 20, 2022
  • Create Stability and Predictability in Your Organization by Understanding Variation – A Systemic Approach Part 6 July 9, 2022
  • Leadership for Complex Times – A Systemic Approach Part 5 July 3, 2022

Connect with us on LinkedIn and Twitter

  • LinkedIn
  • Twitter

Sign Up For Our Systems View Blog!

Fields marked with a * are required.
  • Home
  • Blog Theory of Constraints and Deming
  • Library
  • How to adopt systemic organization management
  • Knowledge Base for ‘The Human Constraint’
  • Contact Us

© 2021 Intelligent Management Inc. Canada

Privacy Policy