Exploring Strategy Development – the Organisational Evolution model

An interesting public workshop in Perth in the first week of October introducing a varied group to the Organisational Evolution model.
The Org-Ev is the model I developed for the start up of The Australian Strategic Planning Institute in conjunction with Steven Bowman.

Given the diversity of the group, there were a number of surprises for participants, the main one being the similarity of issues, even if scale of the issues was different depending on the size of the organisation. The two main themes were:

• Staff attraction and retention
• Staff Productivity

For the manager of the offshore oil and gas platforms, the drive for productivity in extreme conditions is a key challenge. High levels of stress and long working hours are common. For the Doctor and Practise owner from a regional location, the cause of stress was different, but working hours, and health and safety were as prevalent and as pressing inside his Practise as for the oil rigs Manager.
For the NFP attendees, staff attraction and retention was of high concern which interestingly matched to the Fire Services attendee.

Perhaps the biggest learning from the model was the separation of the ‘Operational’ aspects of a business, from the Execution aspects. The model is clear here – the thinking is and needs to be different. Operations identifies, prepares and manages the resources needed. The Execution part of the business USES those resources. Preparing for and Doing are NOT the same and different thinking must be applied.

The Four Phases, Ten steps model is just one way to develop strategic attention and enhance execution. Biased as I am toward futures thinking, I still come back to the first step in the first phase – Vision. Without a clearly defined Vision, decisions on what to pay attention to and how, seem moot.

If you’re interested in finding out more, feel free to contact me

Email Marcus Barber