Vision and strategy for change

Vision & (change) strategy. A good change strategy starts by appreciating today's position.

Anticipating the business challenges of today and tomorrow starts with vision. Think of the challenges that Corona brought with it, the increased international competitive pressure, the pressure from politics and society, etc. Vision formulation is necessary and can be a very complex process, many opinions come together. It is also about drawing up a vision not a static process more, today's dynamics are too great for that. A vision provides direction, is relatively stable, but is regularly updated so that it can provide a lasting response to recent learning experiences and changed circumstances. Then it helps to have a clear approach at hand.

A vision must be one challenging and complete story narrate. After all, she has to inspire an often large group of people. It would be best if you could draw up a vision with all the people in your organization. It is important that a vision not only belongs to the board, but embraced by all people is becoming. This is best achieved if you are able to draw up the vision with all people. But this process only works well in relatively small organizations. In larger organizations this is virtually impossible and the vision will therefore have to be defined with a select group and then seek support from the rest of the organization. In all cases, it helps if the vision tells a story, if all the puzzle pieces come together in one story.

Using the layout from the figure as a framework creates a logical cohesion that can be told as a story.

Much is going well. Much is going well in the organization. Name what that is. This is what you want to hold.
But the world is changing. The impulses for change almost always come from outside. This creates tension with the organization. What impulses are those?
Therefore, we must respond, and these are our goals. Methods, processes, knowledge, culture, organizational method, attitude, behaviour, etc. are under discussion. What must the organization adapt to respond to external impulses?
That's how we're going to get there. This is the strategy. The way to get from today to tomorrow. What is this strategy in outline?

Relationship with other models

There are many models available for this issue, the formulation of vision and strategy. A small anthology:

7s model. A nice coat rack for analyzing your organization.
OGSM. Stands for Objectives, Goals, Strategies & Measures. A fairly pragmatic model for arriving at a strategy.
Porter's 5 forces model. A classic for environmental analysis.
SWOT. Stands for Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats. Provides a nice basis for your strategy.
Etc.

All models have their usefulness depending on the goal you want to achieve. We believe that drawing up and telling a logically coherent story is the most important. We therefore use the above framework as a basis. Within this, it can sometimes be useful to make excursions to models such as the ones above that can be helpful in the analysis.

Would you like to know more about how we then approach change? Download our 10s brochure. Or press the button below and book a free consultation.