Annie recently completed her honours MBA with an A- in strategic planning and was promoted to chief marketing officer (CMO). However, just before the holidays, her CEO gave her feedback.
“You’re not being strategic enough,” he said, which sent her into a panic.
She asked for an example. He offered vague descriptions.
“I’m not sure. But I know it when I see it,” he said, fumbling.
Now it’s January, and Annie is staring down the new year. With expensive textbooks on her shelf and frameworks she can recite in her sleep, she’s baffled. The irony is brutal – her boss can’t explain strategic thinking because he probably learnt his skills organically. She can’t demonstrate it because her MBA systematically taught her to skip the “season” where such skills are actually developed.
They’re both frustrated. They’re both stuck. And neither realises they’re missing the same insight.
EXPERT KNOWLEDGE
She’s not alone. Sadly, most formally trained managers are ill-equipped to drive strategic initiatives in their organisation. At best, they possess some intellectual frameworks but lack pattern recognition and social change management skills.
But it’s not her fault. To produce real-world results, she needs a different approach — one consciously designed for strategy professionals.
What she’s never been shown is that strategists live in three seasons:
Season 3: Creation/mobilisation;
Season 2: Focused skill building; and
Season 1: Curiosity-driven and fun exploration.
The third season is best known. It’s made up of public actions leaders take to build and mobilise a fresh corporate strategy. These projects usually span one to three months and deeply engage the C-suite and board.
Annie was exhausted by the end of her company’s Season 3. Like an Olympic athlete, she needed a break.
Once she recovers, she hopes to reflect on the prior third season to find gaps in her performance. These should motivate targeted skill-building. She’ll have to source books, read academic journals, and maybe hop onto an online lecture.
But this approach won’t work as well as she imagines. Although it follows the MBA formula she excelled at, she won’t become a better strategic thinker. Why?
Sadly, the skills she needs can’t be gained from a perfect seminar. To understand why, let’s look to Warren Buffett.
STRATEGY: AN ILL-STRUCTURED DOMAIN
Buffett is generally known for his expertise as an investor. However, Katherine Graham, former CEO of the Washington Post, also learnt to be an effective business leader from his well-timed interventions.
As an ex-housewife who inherited a newspaper empire, she had no prior corporate experience. Recognising her inexperience, Graham reached out to Buffett. According to Cedric Chin of Commoncog, he responded by quietly walking her through a library of curated annual reports from a range of companies.
But instead of focusing on the financial details, they discussed stories. He intended to reveal the hidden patterns she’d need to see to be a successful top executive. The result? A powerful transformation during her prosperous 28-year reign.
While this method may be disparaged by an MBA lecturer, it follows a newly researched technique. Chin says it’s ideally suited for “ill-structured domains of learning”. Unlike chess, which is highly structured, corporate strategy requires a different mindset for participants to master real-world novelty.
WHERE ANNIE CAN FIND A BUFFETT
During the recent Christmas holiday, Annie found herself caught in a guilty pleasure. While she detested social media, she also wanted to know why Apple’s iPhone prevailed over BlackBerry, Nokia and Ericsson.
A Google search led her to several YouTube videos. Before she knew it, she’d spent four hours watching 21 mini-documentaries. When she was done, she asked: “If I were CMO in one of the failed companies, what could I have acted differently?”
Unfortunately, she also felt guilty. Was this splurge any better than a TikTok session?
The good news is that she was following Warren Buffett’s method without knowing it. According to Chin’s research, the way to become expert in ill-structured domains is via exposure to many cases.
But this isn’t about mindless consumption. Instead, Annie needed to view hundreds of stories to identify failure and success patterns. Only then could she pull them at will from a mental library, the way experts do.
She’d accidentally engaged in Season 1 edutainment: building pattern recognition through case exposure. In the new year, she could use it to motivate Season 2 learning.
The bottom line is that when her organisation enters Season 3 again, she’ll demonstrate the strategic thinking her boss has been seeking. He’d be both pleased and puzzled.
But her company is the true beneficiary. Now, she’s a CMO who can think strategically in real time.
Francis Wade is the author of Perfect Time-Based Productivity, a keynote speaker and a management consultant. To search his prior columns on productivity, strategy, engagement and business processes, send email to columns@fwconsulting.com.
