198 50 TOPEXECUTIVECOACHES
them. I can help them self-diagnose their strategy issues and self-discover
their solutions. In the end, my job is to provide them with strategic thinking
capability.
A good client has a deep desire to rethink the strategy of the company in
a five-year time frame. Many people mistake strategy for the plan they pre-
pare for next year. Although such a plan may be important, it is not strategy.
I think of the things that companies do as belonging in one of three boxes.
Box 1 is about managing the present. Box 2 is about selectively abandoning
the past. And Box 3 is about creating the future. Most organizations spend
most of their time in Box 1 and call it strategy. Strategy is really about Box 2
and Box 3.
For instance, in the last two to three years, many organizations have fo-
cused on cost reductions and improving margins. Strategy is not about what
the organization needs to do to secure profits for the next two years, but
what it needs to do to sustain leadership for the next seven years. Organiza-
tions that engage in cost cutting as though it is strategy are basing their tac-
tics on a series of critical assumptions. They are assuming that technologies
will stay the same and customers will remain in place. If they are making im-
provements, that is all very valuable, but those improvements are only linear
and do not take into account nonlinear shifts in technology, customers, de-
mographics, and lifestyle, to name a few variables.
Ifan organization is following the trajectory of continuous improvement,
it is likely that it will one day wake up and realize that its business model is
no longer valid. Either someone or something has completely disrupted the
model currently in use; or that continuous improvement no longer provides
the aggressive growth needed to reach targets and compete effectively.
Even if the organization’s strategy is based on outstanding analysis of how
the world is going to behave in the next five years, those insights are still only
assumptions. First, the day the strategy is introduced into the organization is
the day it starts to die; the only question is how fast. Second, company’s
strategies are almost entirely transparent today to competitors and potential
customers; the ease with which strategy can be imitated and commoditized
makes it possible to stay ahead of the game only by staying innovative.
Par t of t he job of the organization’s leadership is to make money with the
current strategy. That is the challenge in Box 1. Part of the job is to make up
for the decay and commoditization of strategy. That is the challenge in Boxes
2 and 3. As much as possible, the leadership team wants to make up for the
decay as it goes along, not when it has advanced too far.
The process of coaching for strategy will not look much different in the
next 10 years. It will become even more critical, however, as the pace of