Concept driven strategy

A concept driven strategy is a process for formulating strategy that draws on the explanation of how humans inquire provided by linguistic pragmatic philosophy. This argues we develop concepts from our past experiences and use these to interpret the world as it later presents itself to us .

Concept driven strategy is therefore a strategic inquiry process of agreeing and enacting the set of strategic concepts (organising principles) that "works best" for each organisation. For example, a hospital might set its strategy as intending to be Caring, World Class, Local, Evidence Based, and Team Based. A University might set its strategy as intending to be Ranked, Problem Solving, Online, Equis, and Offering Pathways. A commercial corporation might set its strategy as intending to be Innovative, Global, Have Visible Supply Chains, Agile and Market Share Dominant.

Background

The concept driven approach to strategy formulation first collectively derives and then uses as decision criteria a set of linguistic concepts (organizing principle, frame, intent, purpose, high level objectives, priorities). These are used to make sense of an unpredictable future in a co-ordinated manner. Concept driven (or led) strategy formulation is a participatory approach to planning, decision making, problem solving or strategy formulation that applies linguistic pragmatism. This philosophy argues that complex thinking, as when collectively planning, requires reflection off alternative linguistic concepts. Examples of these linguistic concepts include innovation, globalisation, agility, reasoning, and justice. The set of concepts agreed upon are recorded on a statement of strategic intent which is immediately supported by an action plans table .

Underlying philosophy

Linguistic pragmatism argues that our prior conceptions interpret our perception (sensory inputs). These conceptions are represented by concepts like running, smiling, justice, reasoning and agility. They are patterns of activity, experienced in our past and remembered. They can be named by those beings with language and so shared. Complex thinking is a process of reflecting concepts off each other. The war against [...] can be thought AbOUT using the concepts of religion, revenge, crusades, oil, political opportunism or predatory capitalism. Each is a named experienced pattern of activity. Function determines workable form. Objects are what they do.

Clear or strategic thinking is explicitly choosing what concepts a group use to collectively make sense of whatever happens in the future. Doing this will produce coordinated activities yet allow for individual or local choices. The set of concepts, not too many or too few, will act as decision criteria. Creativity is using novel concepts to reflect off or in seeing new patterns of activity with which to create a novel concept. Visions are mutations of visual memories, which when named can be shared an reflected upon using other concepts. Concepts cannot be visualised but examples can. Objectives and vision statements are only effective because they contain named concepts.

Bagginni explains pragmatic concepts using the classic example of whether the earth is flat or round.

"…if we treat the world as if these concepts do exist then we find we can manipulate the world and make things work much better. The point about this is that you cannot just choose any concept. What is useful is not just on our whim to choose. [A concept is] a better concept for looking at the world because it works much better than others. You don’t have to worry, as some British philosophers have thought that if you go down the pragmatic route that you might believe the world is flat because [that fits best with our sensory input]. Ultimately it isn’t useful to believe that the world is flat. All sorts of things won’t work if you construct your view in that way. These concepts are tools for helping us manipulate the world and some work better than others." Julian Baggini, (aired 2005) Editor of The Philosophers' Magazine

Method

The steps to formulating a concept driven strategy are:

Select who the strategy is for exactly, and what exactly is their problem.
Reflect on significant events in the past that have impacted on the organisation (history matters)
Identify all stakeholders including suppliers, competitors, staff, alliances, government, environmentalist, industry experts, etc.
Ask them what concerns they have for the future relevant to your organisation. Use their experiences and expertise from being involved in the industry.
Use Idea networking to cluster these stakeholder concern statements into about five clusters
Name these clusters as strategic concepts (priorities, organizing principles). For example one cluster of statements might be about innovation, another about becoming more international.
Reflect on the possible paradoxical consequences of enacting these strategic concepts
Draft a one page 'Statement of Intent' which says the organisation intends to become more like the five or so strategic concepts.
Draft implementation action plans for each strategic concept. These should be both organisational change actions and and investment projects, with goals and milestones.
Communicate the 'Statement of Intent' and 'Action Plans' to stakeholders as appropriate.
Get senior staffs' comments, performance measures, selection criteria and decision criteria to reflect the 'Statement of Intent'.
In the longer term, reflect on the strategic concepts in the Statement of Intent .

Other terminology

Concept driven strategy is the name given to an number of similar strategic thinking approaches.

Generally the term 'Concept Driven' is used to encourage the identification of the concepts in use . For example see Concept learning or Management Concepts .

Some organisations produce a Statement of Intent . If this is a short list of concepts, high level objectives, principles, priorities or frames, then concept driven strategy offers a philosophical basis for these statements.

Some organisations produce a Strategic Principles statement which again is similar to a Statement of Intent and the same applies about the Concepts approach offering a philosophical basis. The term Strategic Priorities or Strategic Values are often used in the same way as Strategic Principles.

The literature about Corporate Purpose, is also similar to that of Strategic Intent. If purpose is expressed as a set of concepts, then the concepts approach again provides some philosophical basis.

There is a connection between Systems For Thinking and concept driven strategy. The Churchman/Ackoff stream of systems thinking was interested in a developing generic system of concepts for thinking about problems.

Rather than Concept Driven there is a military planning phrase of Concept-led . The military like leadership. The purpose and intent literature likes to distinguish these from objectives by saying purpose and intent provide the drivers of change (why change). Objectives are where you end up. In complex situations, the drivers may be clearer than the list of acceptable end points. Else all objectives are to survive.

Perhaps strangely there is a connection between Metaphor, Metaphoric criticism, or Conceptual metaphor and Concept Driven Strategy. Pragmatic concepts are not images but most concepts relate to metaphors. For example, to say an organisation is like a machine, with cogs, or like an adaptive organism, is to use the concepts of machine and organism to reflect on organisations.

The term Strategic Frames is not common given the extensive literature on Frame analysis. Frames and pragmatic concepts seem to be very similar.

The system of Strategic Concepts listed in a statement of intent, purpose, principles, frames or conceptual metaphor are Organizing principle(s).

Main Menu

Concept driven strategy

Background

Underlying philosophy

Method

Other terminology

See also

Other literature