British – Nigerian and founder of United Kingdom firm, TEXEM UK, Dr Alim Abubakre, has attributed the collapse of critical Nigerian organisations like NEPA, NITEL, Nigeria Airways, and Dunlop to poor management strategies. Abubakre made the assertion while reviewing a book, “Open Strategy Mastering Disruption Outside The C-Suite”, by Christian Stadler, Julia Hautz, Kurt Matzler, and Stephan Friedrich von den Eichen; on TEXEM’s website. The business expert said that the world is experiencing a turbulent time, but the zillion dollar question is how do leaders turn these challenges into vitamins and win despite these disruptive realities. Abubakre said it was germane to share actionable insights to help leaders thrive, despite the disruptive and volatile operating context.
According to him, he is qualified to signpost leaders to a collection of valuable insights for success. Abubakre said this was due to his experience of engaging with over 4,000 African and UK leaders and hundreds of organisations through TEXEM, a company he founded 12 years ago. “From Volkswagen to Dunlop, Nigerian Airways to NITEL and NEPA, one could contend that what they all have in common aside from extinction are poor strategies and many failed change initiatives. Hence, it is essential to celebrate an instance of a book that inspires leaders to optimise their core competence and capability to win via successfully harnessing an open strategy. Arguably, many businesses and public sector organisations struggle with strategy often because they do not get the nitty-gritty of the art of developing/implementing a good strategy. While most of them understand the importance of having strategies, there’s a need to have a clear strategic direction that guides the process,” the book reviewer explained.
Abubakre said that many organisations had strategies, but the process of making them work was not an easy task. He said that understanding what a strategy is, developing it, and implementing it, differentiate those who succeed from those who fail. Abubakre added that unfortunately, only a few succeeded, as research has shown that between 50 per cent to 90 per cent of strategies fail. He said that as a leader, having the right resources that provide guidelines on strategy is one way to boost performance. “However, while there are many books labelled as the best strategy books out there, not all of them give the right tips on developing and implementing strategies. As such, it is always advisable for leaders and everyone else who wants to master strategy to make the right pick. One of the books that is already gaining tremendous popularity in the business world is Open Strategy: Mastering Disruption from Outside the C-Suite, authored by Christian Stadler, Julia Hautz, Kurt Matzler, and Stephan Friedrich von den Eichen (MIT Press, 2021).
“In this book, four renowned professors share their experience on the art of tapping into the power of people both when developing and implementing a company’s strategy. Their idea for writing the book is to guide leaders on developing the right strategies informed by diverse perspectives. They argue that strategy development is not a one-off exercise but rather a process that takes time. Most importantly, it should incorporate the ideas of all stakeholders, including employees and the top management of the company. In the words of these great scholars, strategy development ‘should generate ideas, openly and effectively as opposed to the traditional closed approach that most organisations use’,” Abubakre said. He said that the process of strategy development should consider the ideas of most, if not everyone, within the organisation. Abubakre said the book encourages the transition from closed-door strategy development to an open and well laid out approach.
He said the idea was that in the traditional approach, leaders or executives would often find it a little bit difficult to come up with imaginative ideas alone. “So, it becomes pretty easy to probe and get the right ideas with an open strategy. How’s that possible? Well, in an open strategy, every stakeholder, especially the frontline employees, are given a chance to share their ideas. In so doing, it becomes easy to develop the right and more actionable strategies that can propel the organisation to higher levels of success,” Abubakre said.
