I am currently reading ‘How will you measure your life?’ By Clayton M. Christensen.
He talks about not giving you answers but giving you tools (or lenses) through which to look at your own life and make your own decisions.
When planning what to do with your life, he talks about ‘Deliberate strategies’ and ‘Emergent strategies’.
A strategy is a plan of action designed to achieve a long-term or overall aim.
A deliberate strategy is a deliberate plan of action taken towards an anticipated opportunity.
An emergent strategy is a pattern of action taken towards an unanticipated opportunity.
Sometimes it is best to share an example to help to understand.
The rest of this article is a slightly shortened version of what Christensen shares in his book.
Honda takes America
In the 1960s, Honda decided to enter the US motorcycle market. They tried to compete with the likes of Harley-Davidson and Triumph. Their strategy was to make similar large motorbikes like the competitors and sell at a much lower price.
Doing so almost killed Honda.
In the first few years, Honda sold very few bikes. They were treated as the ‘poor mans’ motorcycle. Worst still, their bikes leaked oil. Having to send them back to Japan was expensive to fix. Honda persisted with its deliberate strategy. Virtually draining the US division of all its cash.
Honda also made smaller motorcycles know as the Super Cub. Popular in Japan for mainly urban deliveries along narrow roads and crowded areas. A few were shipped to America, but no one expected any US customers to buy any. As Honda’s money got tighter, it started to allow its employees to use the Super Cubs to run errands around the city.
One Saturday, an employee took his Super Cub to the hills of Los Angeles. Up and down the dirt. The twists and turns of the hills. He could work out his frustrations. He enjoyed it so much he invited his colleagues to join him the next weekend.
Bystanders could see how much the employees were enjoying themselves on the ‘dirt bikes’. They asked where they could get one. They were told they weren’t available in the US. One by one, the Honda team were convinced to order them from Japan.
Shortly after, a buyer from Sears asked if they may sell the Super Cub through their catalogue. Honda was initially cold to the idea, as it was diverting them away from their deliberate strategy to sell the big bikes. Little by little, they realised selling the smaller bikes would keep Honda’s venture in America alive.
No one knew how Honda’s entry to the US would turn out. They only planned to compete with the likes of Harley. It became clear a better opportunity had emerged.
Honda’s management team recognised this and concluded that Honda embraces the small bikes as their official strategy. At a quarter of the cost of a big Harley, the super cubs were not sold to classic-motorcycle customers but a new group of “off-road bikers”.
The rest became history.
The chance idea of one employee taking out their frustration in the hills led to a new past time for millions of Americans, who didn’t fit into the traditional touring bike group.
Honda became wildly successful, selling smaller bikes through power tool and sporting goods stores.
Summary
Honda’s experience exemplifies the process by which any strategy evolves.
Professor Henry Mintzberg would teach that the options for your strategy would spring from two different sources.
The first is anticipated opportunities. The opportunities you can see and choose to pursue. In Honda’s case, it was the big bike market in the US. When you put a plan in place focused on the anticipated opportunity, you are following a deliberate strategy.
The second source is unanticipated. A mixture of problems and opportunities. These usually pop up while following a deliberate plan. For Honda, what was unanticipated was the problems with the big bikes (including the costs to fix them) and the opportunity to sell the smaller Super Cub bikes.
The unanticipated problems and opportunities fight the deliberate strategy for attention.
The company then has to decide whether to stick with the original plan, modify it, or implement a new plan from the alternatives that have arisen.
Typically, a modified strategy comes together from daily decisions. To pursue unanticipated opportunities and resolve unanticipated problems.
When strategy forms in this way, it is known as an emergent strategy.
Honda did not decide to stop selling the big bikes and start selling the small bikes in a sudden single strategy meeting. They slowly realised over time. To discontinue selling the big bikes, to stem the cash-bleed of the costly bike repairs. And one-by-one, employees ordered more Super Cub bikes from Japan, and a more profitable path became clear.
When the company’s leaders made a clear decision to pursue a new direction, the emergent strategy became the new deliberate strategy.
But it doesn’t stop there. The process of strategy then reiterates through these steps over and over again. A continuous battle for attention between the deliberate strategy and newly emerging opportunities. On the one hand, if you have a strategy that is working. You focus on the strategy to keep going in the right direction. At the same time, the focus can cause you to dismiss an opportunity for the next big thing.
Takeaways
In our lives, whether we are aware of it or not, we are constantly navigating a path by deciding between our deliberate strategies and the unanticipated alternatives that may emerge.
Neither is better or worse. Which you choose depends on where you are on your journey.
Understanding that strategy is made up of two elements and that your circumstances dictate which approach is best will better enable you to sort through the choices in your life.
Consider your career.
If you have found employment that provides the essential hygiene factors (rate of pay, job security, trusting relationships) and motivation factors (achievement, recognition, growth, responsibility). Then a deliberate approach makes sense. Your aspirations are clear. Focus on how to best achieve the goals you have deliberately set.
If you haven’t reached the point of finding a career that does this for you, you need an emergent strategy. You need to experiment in life. As you learn from each experience, adjust. Then iterate. Continually going through this process until your strategy emerges.
As you go through your career, you will begin to find the areas of work you love and in which you shine. You can’t just sit and think through the problem and wait for an answer to pop into your head. The strategy emerges from a combination of deliberate and unanticipated opportunities. What’s important is to go out and try stuff until you learn where your talents, interests and priorities lie. When you find what works for you, then move from an emergent strategy to a deliberate one.
Happy hunting for your strategy.
Footnotes
Background to Professor Henry Mintzberg
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Mintzberg
The ‘How will you measure your life’ book
https://www.amazon.co.uk/How-Will-Measure-Your-Life/dp/0007449151/ref=nodl_
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