Friends,
I hope that all is well with you and yours.
Here we are, about to close the page on one chapter and begin another. Although such statements often turn into truisms, the past twelve months have undeniably been historic, albeit for primarily unfortunate reasons. A war broke out, the global economy began to sink, the cost of living began to rise, and we were all caught in the middle.
Yet, just like last year, the warmth, compassion, generosity and love shown by friends, online acquaintances, and even complete strangers, made 2022 a year to also look back upon with gratitude.
There is no other way of saying it: you make this newsletter what it is. By sharing, commenting and subscribing, you create the rings on the water that tell the rest of the world that in a still sea of sameness, something is making a splash.
And so, I would like to hear from you how we can take Strategy in Praxis to the next level together. I want to know what you would like to read about, what I should dive deep into, and how we can improve with every week that goes. Please comment and let me, and your fellow subscribers, know. 2023 will bring with it a new setup, improved premium subscriber content, the long overdue fulfillment of promises, and much, much more. Many topics, however, still need to be selected. Now is your chance to discuss that which lies closest to your heart.
Speaking of which, my own year has centered almost entirely on my daughter, Idun. A small child will melt your heart on a daily basis, but also summarize your existence in a plethora of teacups barely-begun and half-finished. Everything is on her schedule. Including this newsletter.
It is an experience impossible to fathom before the event. On one hand, one has never felt more like an adult; one is responsible for a new life. On the other, it sends one back into one’s youth; any evening on the town now requires one’s parents’ permission.
Such examples of bothism define parenthood. It is both energizing and exhausting, filled with moments of pure joy and utter despair. Yet at the end of the proverbial day, when the darkness falls outside, your children light up your life with an intensity that far surpasses that of any sun. There is nothing like it, nor anything like them. For all the hours they require, you would not want to miss a single second.
But, perhaps more importantly for the present conversation, what about the year in newsletters?
Well, we began by finishing off a theme: traditional strategic management concepts. For January and February, this meant analyses of core competencies, competitive advantages, Porter’s five forces, the resource-based view of the organization, horizontal and vertical integration, Ohmae’s three Cs, as well as outsourcing and outshifting.
In March, we turned our focus to acquisition vs retention; the associated costs, the many myths of loyalty, what separates subscription markets from repertoire markets, and the finer points of putting the theories into practice.
As spring then turned into summer, and we had finished discussions about internal capabilities and SWOT models, complexity once again took center stage as we opened up the theatre to Cynefin. Not only did we look at the framework, but we detailed exercises, explained the notion of liminality, and talked about what it all meant for companies.
August featured a topic of particular importance to the work yours truly: adaptive strategy. In many ways, it inverts the traditional (positive) approach, thereby increasing resilience and enabling highly valuable exercises such as negative planning.
In turn, this put us on the path to Gary Klein’s groundbreaking work on insights. We broke down what they are and how they are created, what might prevent them both on an individual and organizational level, and what one might instead do to increase insight generation.
Of course, there is but a short jump from insights to innovation, which thus became our theme for November. The myth of the sole inventor was swiftly dismissed before we had a go at Matt Ridley’s popular theories. In search of something more pragmatic, we finished the month with a highlighting of pivot triggers.
Now, in December, we are busy digging into forecasting and predictions, trying to figure out whether the common methods truly can reduce uncertainty or if they merely lull us into a false sense of security.
Granted, the year also saw a few random turns off piste - extrinsic and intrinsic motivation, BNPL, and sadly both Roe vs Wade and children being subjected to gun violence - but all in all, we stuck to our themes.
I sincerely hope that you liked them. The past twelve months have been, I must admit, rather challenging, but I have given them my very best. 2023 is promising to be better, with more time to write and a plethora of topics to discuss (including a big one: the new book). Please, do join me for it, for this newsletter truly is nothing without you.
Until next week, have the loveliest of New Year’s eves, and from the very bottom of my heart, thank you for subscribing to Strategy in Praxis.
It means more to me than you could ever know.
Onwards and upwards,
JP