The explorer respects the cliché “Rather be lucky than good,” but also recognizes that being lucky requires her to embrace the possibilities. Indeed, it is because the explorer recognizes that random forces and black swans are more powerful than best-laid plans that he includes unplanned and random search in everyday routines. In 1928, the late Percy Spencer, the Raytheon engineer, created the microwave while trying to create a device to track planes. And Sara Blakely’s attempts at creating modified pantyhose led to the creation of shapewear company Spanx.
When Henry Ford became CEO of Ford Motors in 1906, the automobile industry was in its infancy. It rarely produced more than a few thousand cars, as manufacturers struggled to master product and process. Car bodies were delivered by horse-drawn carriages, while workers rotated from one assembly station to another.
Like an explorer, Henry Ford searched everywhere for expertise and experience to improve the process. He hired experts from other industries such as steel, canning, and brewing, which were also experimenting with mass manufacturing. It took many years for Ford to come up with the first moving-assembly line, complete with a winch and a rope stretched across the floor, but by 1916, the line had improved so significantly that annual volume of the company’s Model T had grown sevenfold in four years and the price of the car had dropped to $300.
The strategist as transformer
The principal aim of the transformer is to alter the assumptions, perceptions, behaviors, and practices of internal and external constituents. This entails recognizing when and why change is necessary and how to initiate it.
The transformer is acutely aware that the battle for ideas must be won before change is initiated. The transformer aims to understand their audience, including the concerns, constraints, and priorities. Elon Musk at Tesla has become a master at winning over external constituents. His headline-grabbing announcements—such as the launch of the Cybertruck or the Roadster 2.0—are designed to win the support of investors and customers by reinforcing the idea that Tesla is the most innovative company in the world. Within a day of unveiling a demo version of the Cybertruck in November 2019, Tesla had received 146,000 preorders for the vehicle.
The transformer recognizes that transformation is as much an internal exercise of reshaping and energizing the organization as it is an external exercise of altering the position of the company.
Satya Nadella’s transformation of Microsoft illustrates the importance of organizational transformation. When Nadella became CEO of Microsoft in 2014, the company was widely viewed as sliding toward irrelevance. The focus of the tech sector had shifted from desktop computers to smartphones. The company was heavily siloed, and infighting inhibited new initiatives. Microsoft’s stock price had not budged in over a decade, and its market capitalization hovered around $200 billion, almost 60 percent below its 2000 peak.
Nadella made several key decisions, exiting the mobile-phone business, embracing open and integrated computing, and doubling down on cloud computing. But importantly, he transformed how the organization operated, insisting that everyone at Microsoft act as part of one company and “not a confederation of fiefdoms,” and changed the culture from one of competition to collaboration. “Anything is possible for a company when it is about listening, learning, and harnessing individual passions and talents to the company’s mission,” Nadella noted in his 2017 book Hit Refresh. “Creating that kind of culture is my chief job as CEO.”
Microsoft’s market capitalization has grown more than fivefold under Nadella, reestablishing the company as one of the most valuable in the world.
Finding your avatar
One does not need the title of strategist to be one. Each of us can benefit from thinking strategically, and everyone has the capacity to achieve a degree of proficiency as a strategist. This consists of responding to two challenges.
The first challenge is to identify the contexts in which your natural avatars will thrive. Your avatars will not be highly sought after and rewarded in every organization, so you must choose well. Context includes people—knowing whom to trust more and whom less—and being open-minded and willing to adapt as you gather evidence. Where and with whom will you best be able to demonstrate your natural abilities and skills?
The second challenge is to develop your temperament and capacities so that you can choose the “right” avatar for a situation. Your psychological mindset is as important as your skill set. King’s College historian Lawrence Freedman in his book Strategy: A History argues that proficiency as a strategist requires a high degree of metis, the “capacity to think ahead, attend to detail, grasp how others think and behave, and possess a general resourcefulness.” How can you shape your natural abilities and your mindset to adapt to the circumstances?
Ram Shivakumar is adjunct professor of economics and strategy at Chicago Booth.