2023-07-02 Sunday - Don't Play Like a Kindergartener

[image credit: _Alicja_ on pixabay.com]

 I saw someone's post on LinkedIn this morning:

A few highlights from the post:

• In a famous experiment, Kindergarteners outperformed CEOs, Lawyers, and MBA
• THE EXPERIMENT: Each group was asked to build the tallest tower they could
• 26” - Kindergarteners
• 22” - CEOs
• 15” - Lawyers
• 10” - MBA students
• MBA Students in Action: Start thinking and talking strategically.
• Kindergartners in Action: No strategy, question or discussion phase.

The Kindergarteners don’t waste energy. They just experiment.

Play like a kindergartener
 

My response:

 I'll take a counterpoint view for a moment and propose some dimensions to consider that may help illustrate the problems with adopting such simplistic views of a toy experiment that didn't deeply consider the 2nd and 3rd order effects of its practical implications:

• Complex change has dependencies - within teams, across organizational business units, and across organizational boundaries.

• Achieving complex change requires planning, communicating, coordination, alignment, and selling - as well as developing consensus to obtain funding.

• Real organizations, in real industries, with real consequences - must adhere to a myriad tangle of regulations, standards, and compliance requirements. Real organizations have limitations (resources, time, budgets) - they don't have the luxury for unlimited experiments and retries. To ensure that a real organization doesn't waste its resources, operates efficiently, and meets its regulatory and compliance obligations - requires governance.

• Without governance, every individual or team - may choose a different approach, resulting in duplication of effort and resources - resulting in massive waste and rework (again, and again, and again).

Be thoughtful - don't be mindless drones.

 

2016-06-21 HBR:  Strategic Plans Are Less Important than Strategic Planning
by Graham Kenny

As Kenny noted, Winston Churchill and Dwight D. Eisenhower had similar views. Churchill said, “Plans are of little importance, but planning is essential,” while Eisenhower said, “Plans are worthless, but planning is everything.”