The Emergent Approach to Strategy with Peter Compo

The future isn't planned. We can't create a vision of the future and then tell our employees to make it happen. If this is the case, how can we make the future we want to happen? As leaders, we need to adapt. We create visions, we create ideas, and we create plans. And then as we start walking down the road, we find out what's different from what we thought, and we modify. 

 

In today's podcast, Peter Compo author of The Emergent Approach to Strategy, Adaptive design, and execution for change and innovation, shares how to be an adaptive leader by being adaptive to strategies. Peter is a corporate business veteran, scientist, and musician who spent twenty-five years at E. I. DuPont in diverse leadership positions, including director of corporate integrated business planning. 

 

Key takeaways:

1. Maybe there's a way to make it a win-win with somebody that you do something to. But unless there's some pain, I don't think it's a real strategy. (8:15)
2. Often, the driving force for making the change was the manufacturing group. The business leadership's strategy consisted very much of lists of things to do, initiatives, and so forth. It didn't give the manufacturing group the direction they needed …They didn't know what products to cancel, they didn't know what products not to expedite anymore. (9:49)
3. How does creativity occur? Free thinking is in there, yeah, maybe. But it's not the essence of it. It's some kind of discipline, but it's a deep discipline…they had a strategy. (12:19)

 

To get a copy of Peter's book, coming out this Spring of 2022, visit https://emergentapproach.com.