Re-framing Internet Strategy as a Dynamic, Learning Process

I confess I have become a bit jaded in reviewing management literature, even that from my own alma mater, Columbia Business School. Too often "new" constructs are not really that new and they aren't really usable in business in general, much less in the world of technology-focused strategy..

It was almost by accident, then, that I stumbled onto a piece called Strategy as Learning in the recent issue of Columbia's e-newsletter "Ideas At Work." The piece was an interview with Columbia Professor of Management William Pietersen summarizing the research in his publication "Strategic Learning: How to Be Smarter Than Your Competition and Turn Key Insights into Competitive Advantage."

Pietersen's work put forth a new strategy framework that attempts to address the actionability of past theories by thinking of strategies as dynamic enties rather than static ones.

To be clear, I am not sure Pietersen's proposal is that new — I have been saying something similar for some time — but that shouldn't stop one from finding value in it. The model consists of a four-step cycle:

• Learn: The act of reviewing the external environment in which the organization exists.
• Focus: Determine "the few things that matter the most to the firm's success and make choices about where the firm will compete, what it will offer its customers and how it will win."
• Align: Ensure the organizational management and governance practices are tuned to support the work to be done
• Execution: The implementation of the new strategy and all that goes with it.
• Learn, etc.: At this point the cycle repeats based on new information on the environment and what is and is not working.

This model works particularly well for describing the more narrowly focused discipline of internet strategy. In the online world, smart organizations conduct research to learn about their external environment, particularly as it relates to their target audiences. They then focus their efforts on a small number of services that are most likely to attract and energize the audiences in desired ways. The align step is too often forgotten. Organizations must align the management and governance of their internet operations to ensure staff have the right roles, skillls, incentives, structures, and cultural directions to move the strategy forward. Execution is the actual design and development of new or updated online services, but, as in Pietersen's model, this is just the beginning. Ongoing success requires going back to the learning step, mostly by way of monitoring a series of metrics to assess actual performance against desired outcomes, and refining the focus and alignment before making small changes to the services. The idea of internet strategy as an ongoing dynamic learning process couldn't be closer to the path to achiving online goals.

Two other points  Pietersen makes also strike me as important for internet strategy. One is that "strategy is everyone's job." He says:

The more I've worked with this framework, the more I've realized the fundamental truth that if strategy is created behind a veil of secrecy by a top team and then announced from the mountaintop, it very seldom motivates people to do the right things. They find it really hard to translate that into the right kind of priorities in their own areas of responsibility. The idea is that it is everybody’s job at every level in the organization to create a clear line of sight to the organization’s strategic intent or priorities, and then to translate those into aligned priorities for success in each department.

Internet strategy also relies on everyone in an organization. At an organization of any size, the critical input to an online strategy — content — must necessarilly come from those closest to the work. Therein lies the detailed stories and findings that give the services their power. Likewise, innovations often come from those who are in direct contact with audiences and/or content and who are encouraged to try new things (Pietersen explicitly calls out the need to accept and learn form mistakes). Notice that the alignment with management and governance again comes into play. The organization must ensure that all staff see the internet services are core pieces of its overall success and empower them to make the most of the strategy.

Finally, there is increasing talk about the value of online storytelling. Pietersen notes that it is also critical that leaders be able to tell stories. It is easy for staff to get locked into doing a task without an understanding of how it fits in the larger strategy. Chances are great that said strategy is too ephemeral. If leaders can convey the story behind the strategy they can bring it to life and help staff see each piece as part of a whole. This ensures they can all be working to bring the strategy forward as the learn, focus, align, execute, and learn again.