Introduction

Abstract

Appearances can be deceptive. Companies like to boast of their unity of purpose, their mission, their strategic vision; but too many organisations work without any real plot, and if they do have one, it’s often much too easy to lose it. How many times do you find that the finance people are speaking Cantonese, while the marketers all speak Mandarin? It may look like they’re using the same language, but very little real communication is occurring. How often do the most innovative companies fail because their innovations occur in a strategic vacuum, or because they require new skills that the business has no hope of obtaining? And how many companies employ the most wildly creative types but fail to use their insights simply because there is no mechanism to make that happen? Instead, their best ideas are stacked up like Cold War missiles in a silo and never get the chance to fire.