Suppose your organization is not going in the right direction. You and others on your senior management team are see that strategic reality. Still, you avoid the difficult conversation where you have to start reimagining the organization as something dramatically different.
How, if you are facing this situation, can you initiate a conversation with strategic thinking questions safe enough to raise the issue?
Start with where you are now. Using today as a starting point, reimagine specific strategic aspects, one at a time, to initiate the conversation. Here are five "today" areas to reimagine in a future state:
| Remagine this Today Question | Ask this Bigger Future-Oriented Question |
| What do we do today? | Who else that we've never considered serving needs what we do? |
| What benefits do we deliver to customers? | What completely new ways can we heavy up on the benefits we provide? |
| What are the routine things we do today? | How can we outsource EVERYTHING routine to focus on the incredible we do? |
| What is our core offering? | How can we outsource our core offering to free us up for a greater reach (Think Uber, Airbnb, etc. with this one) |
| What do we do best? | How can we do what we do best at 50% of the price for customers? |
Since each of these questions begins with a grounding in today, it can be an easier transition to start reimagining the future. At the same time, do not completely neglect stretch the senior management team into more blatantly disruptive thinking. You need to do both as part of reimagining who you are as an organization.
If you are a senior executive and are looking for ideas to facilitate this conversation among your peers, contact us. We can suggest more ways to dial in these strategic thinking questions for your organization's specific opportunities and challenges. – Mike Brown
