What happens when you realise your path is entrepreneurship rather than employment? Lindsay takes up the challenge and shares an account of her journey as it unfolds…

 Hi – there’s an update below but meantime, isn’t this fascinating!

“The real challenge in crafting strategy lies in detecting the subtle discontinuities that may undermine a business in the future. And for that, there is no technique, no program, just a sharp mind in touch with the situation.”

Henry Mintzberg

That means that planning and refining a strategy is hugely dependent on feedback from people at the coalface…

Now how about this:

“A company is not a thing, it’s an organism. And strategy is not a message, it’s a process because it’s connected with how people understand the relationship between strategic intention and their experience of the context they are working in.”

That is a quote – not verbatim – but along the lines of something that a Professor said to me last week when I just finished running Mirror Mirror with one of their student project teams.

I think that’s fascinating – and it partly accounts for the vast chasm between strategic intention and strategic implementation. It’s not about telling people what needs to happen and expecting them to deliver that – it’s about aligning people and getting their feedback, as a constant loop.

Of course, that’s not new per se – but getting it right is still a huge challenge.

The student team Mirror Mirror trial went excellently, by the way, because it was clear they weren’t QUITE aligned on their goal, and these subtle differences got magnified down to bigger misalignments on what they thought the relevant developments were and what ought to be done. Got this all cleared up in 3 hours, plus more and high scoring on the evaluation form.

Other headlines:

• The next trial is now confirmed and timetabled for January.
• My main focus has been trying to narrow down an answer to the question: “Who am I targeting?” I am still struggling with that: HR Managers are overwhelmed by people selling the next best tool. Maybe I go in via change and teamwork consultancies so they can sell it to another target group – medium sized tech companies who need this to balance the process side of change management… or should I be targeting those companies directly? This is work in progress.
• At the same time the USP words are becoming more refined – I think THE PHRASE is that Mirror Mirror is a rapid social alignment process that gets teams to a shared current reality.

To be continued. Thanks for reading.

Mirror Mirror is a rapid social alignment process that gets teams to a shared current reality: www.mirrormirrorhub.com

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