GALLUS BOOK CLUB - SIXTH SENSE - THE BEST BITS
OUR TAKE ON ‘SIXTH SENSE - ACCELERATING ORGANISATIONAL LEARNING WITH SCENARIOS’! BY HEIJDEN ET AL EVERY MONTH THE GALLUS BOOK CLUB EXPLORES A TOPICAL, RELEVANT BOOK THAT, ON FACE VALUE, COULD INFORM THINKING, SPARK SOME DEBATE AND GENERATE IDEAS AMONGST OUR MEMBERS. In a globally connected working environment, facing uncertainty, ambiguity, complexity and change is something that all leaders and organisations can relate to. Many of our GALLUS BOOK CLUB members are tasked with identifying and developing future leaders, facilitating strategic conversations and/or leading sizeable functions or business units themselves. Scenarios is a well-tested strategic tool which has proved its worth to many well-known, successful organisations. ‘The Sixth Sense’ is our second read this year. At first glance, you could be forgiven for thinking that high levels of concentration and focus will be required to navigate its ideas. However, its order of content is well thought through, its narrative flows well from one subject to the next, and it delivers a highly pragmatic yet evidence based map of the ‘scenarios planning territory’. Littered with case studies throughout, it shines a light on the benefits of scenario planning and how best to facilitate a scenario planning exercise to generate value and ‘process gain’ (the improvement to thinking and planning processes that intrinsically results from such an exercise). Here we present THE BEST BITS from our perspective…..
THE REASON WHY... Heijden et al create a compelling argument for the use of scenarios throughout the book. They highlight the demands of operating in an ever-changing and largely unpredictable environment, and the resulting need to overturn strategic inertia and ‘Business as usual’ thinking. They suggest that viewing uncertainty as the basis for future success and developing the thinking processes and capabilities required to adapt fast makes for better strategic business decisions.
‘ADAPTIVE ORGANISATIONAL LEARNING IS THE ULTIMATE COMPETITIVE ADVANTAGE’!
The book refers to the ‘Sharpbenders’ research; a study of why organisations fail. The research focused on organisations who had performed poorly and then had demonstrated a sharp upturn in results. According to the researchers, a sharp upturn signalled an understanding of what had caused the performance problem (in order to correct it) and therefore would provide insight into why organisations typically fail. The five categories of causes of decline identified were: 1. An adverse development in market demand or increased competition 2. A high cost structure 3. Poor financial controls 4. Failure of large projects 5. Acquisition problems Most business failures are not down to a bad business idea but are largely due to ‘hygiene factors’ such as poor controls, immature management style (perhaps inflexible, over-cautious, authoritarian, ineffective delegation and/or over-centralisation), failure to create and communicate purpose, or no systemic approach to sensing and responding to change evident.
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