Open Strategy: Mastering Disruption from Outside the C-Suite

by Christian Stadler, Julia Hautz, Kurt Matzler

How smart companies are opening up strategic initiatives to involve front-line employees, experts, suppliers, customers, entrepreneurs, and even competitors.

Why are some of the world's most successful companies able to stay ahead of disruption, adopting and implementing innovative strategies, while others struggle? It's not because they hire a new CEO or expensive consultants but rather because these pioneering companies have adopted a new way of strategizing. Instead of keeping strategic deliberations within the C-Suite, they open up strategic initiatives to a diverse group of stakeholders--front-line employees, experts, suppliers, customers, entrepreneurs, and even competitors. Open Strategy presents a new philosophy, key tools, step-by-step advice, and fascinating case studies--from companies that range from Barclays to Adidas--to guide business leaders in this groundbreaking approach to strategy.
The authors--business-strategy experts from both academia and management consulting--introduce tools for each of the three stages of strategy-making: idea generation, plan formulation, and implementation. These are digital tools (including strategy contests), which allow the widest participation; hybrid digital/in-person tools (including a "nightmare competitor challenge"); a workshop tool that gamifies the business model development process; and tools that help companies implement and sustain open strategy efforts.
Open strategy has an astonishing track record: a survey of 200 business leaders shows that although open-strategy techniques were deployed for only 30 percent of their initiatives, those same initiatives generated 50 percent of their revenues and profits. This book offers a roadmap for this kind of success.

Genres: Business, Leadership, Management, Business Strategy

280 pages, Kindle Edition

Published October 12, 2021

Reviews

[Frank Calberg · Rating 5 out of 5]

Takeaways from reading the book:

What are examples of people and companies that use open strategy?
- Page 61: In Silicon Valley, technology executives ask each other about deals, financial results, new projects and plans for the future.
- Page 62: Glaxo-Smith-Kline released its clinical trials data on the Internet to help discovery of new medicine.
- Page 62: NASA posted images from its Kepler space telescope directly on the Internet so that anyone could analyze actual data to locate new transiting planets.
- Page 80: Gold Corp. shared all data about its Red Lake mine in Ontario openly on the Internet and asked who could find the best methods for finding gold. Half of the 110 sites, which participants in the open strategy challenge helped identify, were previously unknown to the company. Result: The company found 8 million ounces of gold.
- Page 83: For a contest, Cisco used a platform that allowed participants to sign up, contribute their thinking as well as see, comment and vote on submission by other people.
- Page 98: Gallus invited 35 external people to help analyze trends and opportunities for the company. 42 possible trends were identified. The exercise was repeated once a year.
- Page 194: After doing a strategy jam in 2017-2018 with thousands of participants and postings, the revenue and net income of Steelcase increased strongly. In 2020, Steelcase had its best performance in 20 years.
- Page 199: In 2018, Telefónica broadcast live the full executive summit to all employees - inviting them to comment and react in real time to what they were seeing. In 2019, the Chairman of the company asked all employees via the enterprise social network what steps they would take to improve the company. Employees submitted almost a thousand proposals.

Why use open strategy?
- Page xiii: To avoid group think, i e. that people setting strategy finish each others' sentences.
- Page xiii: Make strategy credible and widely understood.
- Page xiii: Make strategy concrete, for example by also focusing on how things will get done what what will get done.
- Page xiv: Foresight and creativity do not correlate with rank.
- Pages 16 and 187: People will most likely take ownership over a strategy, process or project, if they feel some level of control, and if they develop intimate knowledge of it. Ownership prompts people to work harder to achieve specific goals.
- Page 26: The more people you can get thinking and engaging and providing their diverse opinion, the more likely you are to pick the right direction.
- Page 27: Diverse collaborations far outperform homogeneous partnerships.
- Page 32: The whole point of using open strategy is to build more learning and growth into strategy-making.
- Page 61: Transparent communication can increase trust, perceptions of fairness, loyalty and engagement.
- Page 101: In general, insiders cannot imagine the future as well as a mixed group of insiders and outsiders can - not because they have too little expertise or knowledge about their business but because they have too much of it.
- Page 182: Most strategy topics have countless causes, are difficult to describe, have no right answer, involve many different stakeholders, are complex and lack historical precedent. A narrow group of specialists will struggle to solve these problems, because they will lack the breadth of perspective, knowledge and expertise.
- Page 187: Open strategy helps improve communication and understanding of strategy.

Platforms using which ideas can be developed:
- Page 77: https://www.innocentive.com/
- Page 77: https://www.kaggle.com/
- Page 190: Breakout rooms, for example via https://zoom.us/
- Pages 196 and 200: Using social media and other digital platforms, people can - on an ongoing basis - participate in strategy related conversations. Use of social media also helps to increase transparency and spread information quickly.

What is important for a community?
- Page 86: To aggregate diverse contributions into a whole.
- Page 86: To help people feel energized.
- Page 90: To find common interests among people who feel part of the community.
- Page 90: A powerful platform to host the opportunity.
- Page 90: Active moderation.

Questions to find out what values do you have
Try answering each of these questions using a scale from 1 to 100:
- Page 22: To what extent do you believe in openness, inclusiveness, creativity, innovation and boldness?
- Page 22: To what extent can you let go of control?
- Page 22: To what extent do you believe that other people can help set the company on a path to future success and keep you focused on that path?
- Page 23: To what extent do you believe that efficiency will increase, when strategy is opened up.
- Page 29: To what extent do you interact with other people in a way that is dominated by abundance?
- Page 34: When confronted with a problem, to what extent do you invite others to help you?
- Page 34: How comfortable do you feel sharing information?
- Page 34: To what extent do you see disagreements as opportunities for learning?
- Page 35: To what extent do you feel comfortable giving up control of a situation or process?
- Page 35: To what extent do you talk about ideas with people, who work for other companies and in other industries?
- Page 35: To what extent would you trust a crowd of individuals with different backgrounds over industry experts?
- Page 35: To what extent do you think that giving outsiders a voice will lead to valuable contributions?
- Page 35: To what extent are you convinced that a person, who knows nothing about the industry, in which you work, can provide valuable ideas for you?

Users
- Page xx: What do users need?
- Page 79: The more specific and detailed the problem of a user is described, the more likely it will be to attract participants and generate useful solutions.

Offerings
- Page x: Evaluate ideas for novelty, impact and do-ability.
- Page xx: What products and services should we develop?
- Page xxii: What technologies / platforms / apps can help serve users even better?
- Page 84: People, who work for Cisco, ask 5 questions: 1. Does the idea solve a real challenge that customers face? 2. How large is the market for the potential product or service? 3. Is the timing right for such a product or service? 4. Is Cisco well positioned to pursue this idea? 5. Does the idea represent a long term opportunity?

Other questions:
- Page 110: On a scale from 1 to 100, how relevant are which trends?
- Page 110: On a scale from 1 to 100, how well prepared are we to address which trends?

[Alva Taylor · Rating 5 out of 5]

A lot of books end up on the sales shelves after a few months because they are often one idea stretched to 300 pages - this book isn't one of those. Managers have long known that the old 5 year business plan - or formal strategic planning doesn't work in today's fast changing competitive environments. However, managers still use these outdated approaches to justify their decisions. This book givens a new approach, and real steps, on how to open up your organization and build a responsive strategy. It gives concrete steps and concrete examples (I'd love even more real world examples - maybe with even more templates and worksheets - Volume 2?). It provides an approach that uses 'today's' technologies and methods to inform decision making.

Well worth the read and the beneficial even if you only use parts of the process (but most companies could use the entire toolbox).

[David Shirk · Rating 4 out of 5]

Solid business book, good ideas on openness within and without an organization. I like that it deals primarily with companies I’m not familiar with, and that it spells out pitfalls for each of the suggested concepts.

I particularly love the nightmare business scenario, similar to a war game - create a fictional competitor that will destroy your company’s core model - with the point being how to adapt and innovate.

I thought the crowdsourcing of information was excellent as well - using Buffalo migration patterns in Yellowstone to create AI software that could monitor Russian troop movements. . .fascinating, though a bit deceitful and possibly nefarious!

I save 5 star reviews for best books of all time, which for me might be Jim Collins or Simon Sinek. This is a solid 4 and will provide good takeaway ideas for leaders, but I don’t see myself instantly transforming what I do using the open ideas - the concepts may sit in the toolbox for a while.

[Juan Rivera · Rating 4 out of 5]

Another book on business administration and how to improve mine. Two ideas from this book seemed great to me:

We always think that the strategy should be made by the directors, but unless it is geniuses like Jobs or Musk, the author suggests inviting most of the people in the company. He comments that many times people make fewer mistakes than experts. (Well, we already saw that in politics at least this is not so true). But when people know what they're talking about, like when it comes to employees, customers, and suppliers, it may be truer.

And the other important point: since employees and business partners have contributed to making the strategy, they help implement it.

How open should you be with your employees about your strategy? Any businessmen to comment?

Good book, I would give it four stars.

[Dr Alim · Rating 5 out of 5]

This fantastic, well-articulated book aptly captures the synthesis of innovation and strategy for sustainable success in a world characterised by the urgent need to evaluate the organisations' core competencies in an increasingly fast-paced, stiff competition and digital ecosystem. It clearly articulates how to make the best choices, take the right actions and position the organisation for success. This book will help strategic leaders learn how to avoid confusion, complacency, denial and be in a continual state of renewal.

[Philip.Waeltermann · Rating 5 out of 5]

The book provides a new way to deal with the uncertainty companies face today. It’s an extension of the open innovation idea to the strategy domain. This creates some comfort with the idea to start with. The authors do a good job helping me to overcome the remaining anxiety I had by offering tons of examples and easy to use tools. It’s an amazing book that I recommend to all those who have to craft plans for the future. The time you invest in reading pays big dividends.

[Simon · Rating 5 out of 5]

Every so often a new step is made which is essential to both academic and business needs. This is one of those books that is essential to anyone who wants say they understand strategy and get their own strategy right. If you are thinking of doing an MBA make sure this is on your pre commencement reading list

[Carl Frederik · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5 stars

+ Very nice book that gives a new, alternative, and to some extent provocative view on crafting and executing strategy.

+ The book offers practical guides for how to get started, e.g., step-wise guides - not just the talk 😊

- Examples fill too much
- Talk about IMP fill too much and makes the book a piece of marketing material

[Manouane Beauchamp · Rating 1 out of 5]

L'idée contenue dans ce livre est qu'il faut construire une stratégie en impliquant les employés ou des équipes tant au niveau des opérations que des gestionnaires au niveau des vices-présidents. C'est tout.

[Remi Abere]

Great read! If you are planning to adopt and implement innovative strategies. This is your book!

[Paolo Capitelli · Rating 4 out of 5]

Interessante l’idea di applicare i concetti “open” (es. open innovation, open data, open source,…) anche alla definizione di una strategia aziendale. Un libro molto pratico e concreto

[Kostiantyn Koshelenko · Rating 5 out of 5]

It is a very powerful and practical book. I am grateful to Kurt for sharing his experience with Ukrainian managers.

[Juan Estevez · Rating 4 out of 5]

Estaba bueno el tema

[Steven Adjei · Rating 5 out of 5]

Steven Pressfield, the celebrated expert on writing said that the most difficult book to write is the book that stands on its own truth.
Why a book like this hasn't already been written is beyond me. Its possibly because CEO's and board members think that crafting strategy belongs to the members of the C-Suite.
This book disproves that, and then some.
The sad thing is, any shop floor assistant, cleaner, officer worker, nurse or blue collar worker could have told us this.
This is a brilliant book that deserves all the accolades it has won.
I love it.

[Theodore Kinni · Rating 5 out of 5]

Crowdsourcing strategy sounds odd, but authors make a strong case that opening up strategic deliberations offers a host of benefits, including rooting out biases and getting a broader, more diverse base of ideas in the hunt for competitive advantage. Edited adaptation here: https://sloanreview.mit.edu/article/o...

[Benjamin Wann · Rating 3 out of 5]

Good start but very dry and technical

I think the beginning news captivating and interesting but after 45%, I had so much trouble staying interested. Also, the heavy German focus was nice from a variety aspect but hard to connect to as I'm in the US.