google firestarters - good strategy is purposeful, precise, prosaic and profound (view on full...
TRANSCRIPT
This is a 10 minute talk given to an audience of London strategists and planners at Google’s London HQ on June 10th 2015. It was a Google Firestarters event curated by Neil Perkin and enHtled The Magnificent Seven. Six of London’s finest planners (and me) were invited to share “The most useful thing you have learned in your career to date” in the form of a provocaHon. I was third on out of seven. Hence the Htle: ProvocaHon 3.
I felt a liSle like Pete Best. “Who?” you say. Exactly. Pete Best was the Beatles’ drummer before Ringo Starr. SomeHmes referred to as the FiYh Beatle. He is a relaHve unknown and that is how I felt sharing a plaZorm with the great and the good of the London planning scene.
Here is my meandering career path to date, by way of some form of credenHals. I studied Chemical Engineering at university, but never pracHsed as an engineer. However I carried an engineer’s appreciaHon of precision and elegant soluHons with me into adverHsing, along with an engineer’s fascinaHon for how things work at a fundamental, under-‐the-‐bonnet level.
I spent 6 years at BBH as account director, 12 years at The Leith Agency (the last 6 as managing director), and 9 years and counHng at Blonde (a digital agency) as planning director. So I have head a variety of roles in a variety of agencies. And I’ve tended to stay in each place for a reasonable amount of Hme. I’m either careful, lucky or docile.
Neil asked us to share the most useful thing we’ve learned in our career to date. Which I guess falls under the heading of “wisdom”. And he asked us to share that wisdom in a provocaHve manner. So just what does provocaHve wisdom look like? Well maybe a liSle like this. Marsellus Wallace talking to Butch (Bruce Willis) in the film Pulp FicHon.
So this was my provocaHon to a room full of people for whom strategy is the job. I realise that I was at least flirHng with arrogance by saying this. But it wasn’t my intenHon to to put myself on some kind of superstar strategy pedestal. My point was that, for an industry that talks a good planning and strategy game, there are a lot of pracHHoners who don’t have as firm a grip on what strategy is, or what strategy done well looks like as they should. I have seen this Hme and again from senior, well-‐known people who should know beSer in the presentaHons they’ve given, and briefs they have issued. A common mistake for instance is the failure to disHnguish between objecHves and strategy. You see this a lot.
So, for the purposes of this talk, the most useful thing I have learned is to have a clear, well-‐honed point of view on what good strategy looks like, and to have some simple models to ensure that your strategy is proper strategy and that it is both clear and robust. The rest of my slides are an example of such a framework. This one has served me well and seemed to resonate with a decent proporHon of the audience on the evening.
I think that one of the reasons for strategy done badly is that it is the end product for the planning discipline. So there is a tendency to view it as an end in its own right. Which brings with it the temptaHon to try too hard to make strategy intellectually saHsfying or to make strategy overtly “creaHve” in its arHculaHon. We would do beSer to remember that strategy is but a means to various commercial ends. This framework helps to keep the planner’s feet on the ground.
The four P’s. Good strategy is Purposeful and Precise, Prosaic and Profound. Let’s look at each alliteraHve couplet in turn.
I menHoned that one of the basic mistakes that people make with strategy is to confuse strategy with objecHves. I use a decepHvely simple framework called “How can we…? So that…?” to ensure that my team and I differenHate appropriately between the two. When you arHculate strategy using this construcHon it forces you to make the disHncHon between mean and ends. It also helps with your evaluaHon framework because it makes obvious which units and metrics pertain to communicaHon means and which pertain to (more valuable) commercial ends. This is a simple model ensures that your strategy is rooted in a valuable purpose and that it arHculates a precise plan to achieve it.
Here is an example of that framework in acHon for one of my clients. Our purpose, our commercially valuable end, was brand health. That’s the same purpose as TV adverHsing, measured in the same way through the brand tracking study. Our means, our digital strategy, was to deliver adverHsing-‐scale audience reach through social channels. This is where precision is important. There are a myriad of apparent success measures available to digital comms. This statement of strategy makes it clear that we are only concerned with audience reach. And delivering reach cost-‐efficiently means content that gets shared. Shares and reach were the ONLY things we focused on for this client, to the exclusion of all else. And it worked. This is not a case study presentaHon and I didn’t have Hme to go into detail with results. The point is that such precision and single-‐mindedness have profound implicaHons for the execuHon of strategy, and that is as it should be. In this case a dedicaHon to shares had profound implicaHons for content quality control. This apparently simple model can be profoundly powerful.
The “How can we…? So that…?” model is designed to ensure that strategy is Purposeful and Precise. But the whole thing breaks down if you slip into imprecise thinking such as is implied by the use of the word “engagement” or any variaHon on that theme. Engagement, engaging, engage is the language of the lazy. Engagement is the anHthesis of precision. It can mean almost anything. And therefore it effecHvely means nothing. Engagement is a pox on strategic rigour. I have banned my team from using it and strategic thinking is ALWAYS beSer for it.
Next, what do I mean by Prosaic and Profound…?
I am of the opinion that some of the best examples of strategy done well can be found in the annual reports of publicly listed companies. The primary audience for these statements of strategy is investment analysts. The CEO’s and CFO’s responsible for corporate strategy know that this audience is exacHng and unforgiving. Strategy needs to make sense. Strategy needs to be credible. And the analysts need to believe that the strategy will deliver results – namely sustainable long term growth in profits and dividends.
This balance of credibility and potency is oYen delivered in statements of strategy that are Prosaic in arHculaHon but Profound in implicaHon.
The example above is a statement of strategy from a well known brand. It is Prosaic almost to a fault.
And here is the Profound implicaHon of that strategy. The Apple Store. The “Theatre Of Screens”. Good strategy forces you to do things that sound simple, but which are not easy. That is perhaps a yardsHck of good strategy. It takes you into the arena of the simple but not easy. I read a KMPG paper recently, which suggested that strategy done well generates “beneficial confrontaHons” wherein the strategist has to choose one path over another -‐ simple choices that are not easy to make.
Here is another example from Marks & Spencer. Like all listed companies its objecHves are a variaHon on the theme of long term profit growth. One pillar of the M&S strategy to achieve this is to improve gross margins. That is preSy Prosaic – “Our strategy is to improve gross margin”. But it has very Profound implicaHons. For instance the company plans to bring 60% of clothing design in house by 2016/17, up from 20% at the end of 2014. That sounds simple, but you can bet that it won’t be easy.
So that was my “provocaHve wisdom”. Save the high faluHn’, overtly creaHve, self-‐consciously inspiraHonal stuff for mission statements if you like. But keep your strategy Purposeful, Precise, Prosaic and Profound.