Presentation in Hong Kong

I just returned from PMI Global Congress Asia Pacific in Hong Kong. Slides from my presentation on aligning operations with organizational strategy here.

One thing came up that I didn't expect. When I talk about aligning with strategy, one of the first things I do is talk about what constitutes a strategy, as it's an often misused term. Normally, after a talk, people come up to me and tell me that they realized that their organization's strategy isn't one, and ask for advice on how to deal with that issue.

In Asia, however, the question was very different. Several people approached me from different organizations, letting me know that their company's issue wasn't an ill-defined or poor strategy, but rather their company didn't have a strategy at all, and senior leadership didn't understand why one was needed. Many of these organizations were in markets with little or no competition, such as a state-owned enterprise or a monopoly.

As Ted Levitt noted in his seminal work, Marketing Myopia,"If thinking is an intellectual response to a problem, then the absence of a problem leads to the absence of thinking." It's exciting to see people in organizations without competitors thinking about strategy, but wow, what a tough job!