The Human Strategist:
Dancing on the Edge of the Possible

Elaine Baran

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In order to set boundaries, however, it is necessary to stretch and test boundaries. Most parents of young children and teenagers are pretty familiar with this process in action. It seems to be the modus operandi of youth to test the boundaries imposed by parents, society, school, and just about everyone else. In our very young, we relish this testing and see it as positive when our two year old starts to explore her world more directly. Somehow we expect older children to grow out of it – we don’t relish it quite so much when our teenage son starts to push the boundary of independence and disappears for a night on the town with his friends. And later, when we enter into the world of work, pushing the boundaries is an even less sought-after behavior. It is often actively discouraged in many companies. Even progressive companies prefer to channel their boundary pushing activities into very narrow channels, such as research and development, where it can be ‘controlled’.

So strategists have the enviable, and yet challenging, job of becoming boundary pushers in their own companies. They’re the ones who have to ask questions like:

What if a new form of power, based on nano-technology or biomass conversion supplants the power systems in our products in the next five years and its adoption curve is more rapid than we anticipate?

What can we learn about the linkage density in food webs that could be applied to our understanding of our industry’s inherent network and what does that mean about future alliance opportunities?

How might the single-photon source technology encourage cheaper encryption and jeopardize our company’s internal security mechanisms?

How might new findings in particle physics change the outlook of the next generation of consumers, much as the Newtonian mechanics and Einstein’s relativism changed previous generations?

How will our company deal with the accelerating rate of change in scientific development?

Logically, and economically, our companies cannot afford to have everyone on their staffs engaged in the active pursuit of these longer-term boundary-setting exercises. However, in order to provide a good strategic planning environment, it must be recognized that someone at the company has to be thinking this way. This type of boundary stretching cannot be outsourced to the occasional consultant (although they can certainly assist in broadening a corporation’s outlook), nor can it fall onto the over-filled plate to of the CEO. Whether undertaken by a designated staff or delegated out to various functional areas that then maintain internal communication, this is an exercise that must take place. It is imperative if companies are to survive and adapt, to continue to serve their constituencies and to provide for the greatest value to their stakeholders. It will be necessary to prepare your staff to dance on the edge of the possible in order to recognize the probable.