Communicating strategy - a book review

I've been having an unlucky streak with my reading recently (see here and here). So, I am pleased to say that the latest read, "Communicating Strategy", by Phil Jones, was pretty good, though not great.

As with my previous reviews, I am bound to state upfront that I had high expectations of this book. I really enjoyed parts of it; Phil Jones clearly has a huge amount of experience as a coach and performance consultant and the book contains many interesting examples of how to approach strategy development and communication. The style is easy and I liked the fact that he did not provide a simple checklist reminding us to think about the audience, build a compelling story, consider the mode of communication etc. (see here for a posting on my aversion to checklists!), but rather opted for a more rhetorical approach (putting out questions without direct answers at the end of each section to make you think).

I particularly liked the second chapter, which describes "Ten Heresies" in his own thinking towards communicating strategy. That "people are not stupid", that you can "trust people" and that "you can over communicate" are certainly positions that I entirely agree with.

But what I liked most about the book was the constant reminders it contained to think consciously about what and how you communicate to whom.

It is easy to get into a rut in communications - everyone has a style they are most comfortable with and tend to use it irrespective of audience and need (I personally find it very helpful simply to try different communications techniques/modes just to force myself to think consciously about what it is I want to communicate from as many different stakeholders' perspectives - even if you end up shifting back to your comfort zone - as I personally undoubtedly often do - the act of considering things from multiple angles typically gives you insights that improve your thinking).

This is a good book with a lot of simple advice. Beware though that it also contains considerable references to NLP techniques - certainly interesting but not everyone's cup of tea.

Blue ocean strategy in 8 slides

Another short posting today.

When I first read "Blue Ocean Strategy" a few years back, I was not so impressed - it was a good synthesis of thinking that had preceded it, but I failed to see what is new...

Several years on, I haven't really changed my mind about the content - it isn't new - but I guess I have gained an appreciation for what a professor during my undergraduate days used to call "masterful synthesis" ("there are no new ideas, just new configurations of old ideas", paraphrasing Audre Lorde) and I suspect I am a good deal more open to the fact that even small changes and innovations in business can be truly difficult to achieve.

BlueOceanStrategy.com is a really nice website that covers the core tools and techniques from the book; the strategy canvas,the "four actions" framework and others. If you haven't read the book, go here first!

And even "better", there is an 8-page summary deck. Now all that I have to do is work out where the blue ocean is in the IT consulting space.. which turns out to actually be quite difficult even with the nice tools.

Darn!

Star trek & social media marketing

At the risk of destroying my "online image", I have a confession; I am a Star Trek geek (not that this is going to come as a surprise to anyone who knows me!). This is probably why I liked the following info-graphic that explains the roles and activities required to use social media as a marketing tool effectively. Check it out here.