Roger Martin - What is Strategy? Planning is not Strategy (Full version)

“Strategy is a set of integrated choices. A plan is not a strategy.”
This is our conversation with the world’s #1 management thinker Roger Martin.
Watch the Trailer version here • Roger Martin - What is...
The former Dean of the Rotman School of Management & author of 13 books including Playing to Win and A New Way to Think.
Roger's work in strategy, continues to leave a prominent mark globally in distilling down complex and often noisy concepts into crystal clear principles that can be applied in the real world.
As a strategy advisory ourselves, Foundstone Advisory incorporates many of Rogers break-through concepts and insights into our own practice across customer & market insights, strategy, planning and execution.
In our conversation, we get Roger's unique perspective on:
-Why he does what he does
-A Plan is not a Strategy
-The pitfalls of Revenue forecasting
-Strategy & Execution
-Should I study for an MBA?
-Strategy & Data
In our conversation, Roger shares more unique insights in his recent clip with @harvardbusinessreview that has gone viral - A Plan is not a Strategy
You can watch it here: • A Plan Is Not a Strategy
We hope you enjoy this episode and get some really practical strategy tips for your own leadership toolbox and organisation.
Find out more about Foundstone Advisory strategy services below
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foundstone.co/strategy-assess...
Or listen to the episode on podcast:
Spotify
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Links to other podcast platforms
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Chapters of the conversation:
00:00 Introduction
2:55 Roger's inspiration
12:00 A Plan is not a Strategy
19:31 Pitfalls of just relying on revenue forecasting
22:32 Strategy and execution
38:28 The Decline of business education
46:22 100% of all data is about the past
#Strategy #StrategicPlanning #HarvardBusinessReview #RogerMartin
#Planning #Business #Explainer #Success #HowTo

[@CaronDusing]

Love the 'well, Roger' stories!

[@foundstoneconversations]

Great to hear it was valuable!

[@sarahbeee3]

As someone who has dedicated her life to design strategy, this is one of the most compelling and clear argument for design education and practice - and why so much great design strategy is crushed under the weight of outdated business beliefs and practices. Thank you for this!

[@foundstoneconversations]

That's wonderful to hear it was so valuable Sarah!

[@joseluisreyes8282]

Great interview and reflections. Especially relevant, the comparison between business and design schools. Congrats Roger!!!

[@donpatricklau]

Thank you for teaching me

[@foundstoneconversations]

Glad you found it helpful!

[@theanalyzingpro]

Experience is talking in this interview!!

[@foundstoneconversations]

Glad it was helpful!

[@ksoonsoon]

Terrific video. Thanks

[@foundstoneconversations]

Thanks! Glad you enjoyed it

[@134679258qwe]

fantastic conversation.

[@foundstoneconversations]

Glad it was helpful Julian!

[@caistraam]

@@foundstoneconversations 😮😮😮😮😮😮

[@iamvonKohl]

Great stuff. Thanks for sharing.

[@foundstoneconversations]

No problems Peter, glad it was helpful !

[@kerrygearin3910]

“Revenue forecasting is the moral equivalent to giving a pacifier to a crying baby” 😂😎💎 Thank you soooo much. I was wondering how I’m expected to forecast even pre-launch!

[@foundstoneconversations]

Glad it was helpful :)

[@gerlindechristina238]

Love the 'well, Roger' stories😊!

[@foundstoneconversations]

Glad to hear it was valuable!

[@julesv2914]

I’m probably thinking differently then the speaker on revenue forecasting but in my business like any business we have to forecast what we expect to make. With those projections we formulate our plans to support the increased demand. Without those exercises we would always be responding last minute to the success of our business. Because of direct response campaigns we are able to forecast pretty accurately what we will make.

[@bayou__]

Thanks Prof Roger Martin, and the host

[@foundstoneconversations]

Glad that it was helpful! It was a great conversation

[@THMN09]

To say revenue forecasting is a waste if time is dumb. Revenue forecasting is necessary for resource planning. If i don‘t have an estimate of what i might sell, then i don‘t know what resources i may need - should i just go ahead an build a big, new factory if i have no idea what i might produce there?

[@foundstoneconversations]

I think Roger was just highlighting the point that there is so much time wasted on revenue forecasting rather than working on the tough strategy decisions and market insights that should be occurring.

[@sirisaksirisak6981]

In play game strategy must change plan to win game. If no completer strategy is needn't.

[@foundstoneconversations]

Hope the conversation was helpful

[@sanjeevthakur6435]

It is good learning, but how many companies are willing to take risk execution of Strategy rather than plan. Regarding planning future based on past data is being implemented in all the business spears and success is also measured based on past records.

[@foundstoneconversations]

Glad it was helpful Sanjeev, thanks for sharing your perspective. The theme of the conversation was to make sure real (and tough) strategy choices are made upfront before planning. Roger brings an alternative view to not just focus on data (which is historical) as the default but to also go out and get your own unique insights that will help you make strategy decisions.

[@user-jp7ni5xv1r]

@@foundstoneconversations absolutely. I believe data is important to help shorten the odds but thats it - strategy is all about making choices for the future and trying to de-risk by shortening the odds. but ultimately you cannot prove it will work - 100% of data is always going to be in the past, even if it was collected 1m ago. So the best you can is to test using abductive logic and some sample data from the market - to tease out whether what you are working towards will build a compelling vision and value proposition that the customer will buy into, and pay for with the currency (time, money, attention etc).

[@foundstoneconversations]

@@user-jp7ni5xv1r Thanks for sharing your perspective on this

[@Tom6567my]

A company needs both plan and strategy. It's not a matter of either or.

[@m.fazlurrahman5854]

Dad must be selling animal feed which has got patented ingredients unit with obviously a unique Vitamin that is hard to copy. Dad surely is a genius. Unless customers finds out “complimentary co-existing animals” feeding one another in a perpetual food-chain.

[@bondniko]

Be more specific on what you mean by "do not waste time on revenue forecasting", please.

[@foundstoneconversations]

I think Roger was just highlighting the point that there is often so much time wasted on revenue forecasting that distracts people away from the real strategy work that needs to be done.

[@jon7222]

The whole strategist vs execution monkey conversation is because people falsely believe in the one true helmsman fallacy of leadership. If the C-Suite isn't the ultimate decision maker entirely responsible for the success of the company, then why do they get paid so far beyond everyone else in the company? Roger's arguing in the face of the old adage, "it's difficult to get a man to understand something when his job depends on his not understanding it". Their wealth is a direct result of the lie that they are the ones making the company work, will the rest of the salt miners down in the trenches just work away stupidly, executing their vision. It's a carry over from Fredrick Taylor's completely psychotic view of people as machines.

[@foundstoneconversations]

Thanks for sharing your perspective

[@debbiecoleman1941]

Forecasting comments making me a bit uncomfortable

[@foundstoneconversations]

That's a fair comment. I think Roger was just trying to make a very strong point that there is often too much time spent on trying to finesse and forecast numbers when this effort would be better spent out in the market and working on the 'how' of the strategy itself.