Uncertainty and risk are part of today’s business landscape.  How to plan strategically and make decisions in light of continually changing market dynamics is one of the principal challenges leadership teams are facing.  The Strategy Paradox provides some interesting insights and options for thinking and planning in adaptive ways that minimize risk in dynamic and often turbulent environments. 

On June 4, Michael Raynor, Ph.D., Distinguished Research Fellow at Deloitte will discuss the concepts of “Requisite Uncertainty” as a design principle for coping with environmental turbulence and “Strategic Flexibility” as an organizational mechanism for combining commitment with agility. David Lewin, Neal Jacoby Professor of Management at the Anderson School will introduce Michael Raynor and provide faculty comments.

Traditional, and effective, methods of setting and executing strategy are premised on hard-to-reverse commitments to specific ways of creating and capturing value.  But when the future is difficult, or impossible, to predict with sufficient accuracy, this makes organizational success a matter of luck rather than skill.  Agility might be a good way out, but agile companies finish second to lucky ones.  How can organizations be both committed and adaptable?  That is the goal of "Strategic Flexibility," a way of thinking, organizing, and acting that makes it possible for firms to be committed to specific strategies, yet still able to respond to unpredictable changes.  And the specifics of this approach will surprise you:  an emphasis on hierarchy, an avoidance of alignment and common visions of the future among top leaders, and low levels of autonomy for operating unit managers.