I see it every day – companies, organizations, and leaders, choosing to live 2-D strategy to accomplish visions for their future, instead of a vibrant 3-D experience.
Sometimes, we choose because we don’t know how. The muscles for risk tolerance, innovation, & creativity have not been developed. We need to place ourselves in educational and professional development opportunities, employment cultures, and with those who are on the outer edge in order to learn to think and live differently.
Often, a series of minor failures, or a very public miss along the way, made us flinch. We retreat instead of labeling the experience a moment of “piloting and testing” – as part of learning – glad to know the lesson and able to use it as an inform instead of becoming paralyzed. We let others write the story about how to process it instead of taking charge of proclaiming it as an opportunity to carry on with new understanding.
Creating a strategic thinking process in organizations that have leaders articulate the next logical dot, dot, dot from the current data points is not strategy. That’s safe, operationalizing of what is known today. It’s 2-D strategy. Rarely does it take into account the big fundamental shifts that are coming. Instead, leaders select safe steps they can take in-between until the shift hits them, and they create a reactive or defensive posture.
3-D strategy has leaders look it square in the eye; squirm in their seats that what has made their company or organization successful is not necessarily going to work for them. Proactively, they dig deep; identify breakthroughs, gaps, and opportunities to exploit, piloting & testing with a fearless assurance that they’ve got this and will learn as they go.
It’s the same with our lives. We can wait for “the one.” We can hope we get picked for the project team. We can keep our fingers crossed that we make enough money to live where we want and travel. We can live in 2-D.
Or as leaders of our lives, businesses, and organizations, we can decide that we’ll use all the colors in the palette; that this is our shot to be the leader in our market or our industry; that we’ll be the professional that everyone wants to listen to because, not only have we done our homework, but we are willing to be viewed as the odd one – not in the mainstream.
The mainstream never created a bold impact. 3-D lets you see from all angles and requires you not to flinch when something flies out from the screen at you. Today is your opportunity to decide whether you’re going to create the vision & strategy that allows your leadership to be 3-D; for your company to be the cutting edge one everyone else is trying to catch up to; or for your organization to reinvent itself and propel the mission to what would be considered a pipe dream.
It’s up to you – 2-D or 3-D strategy?
