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Conversation is a game of circles.

RALPH WALDO EMERSON

Strategic workshops can be frustrating, especially if they are run according to the rimless wagon-wheel approach. At the centre of the accompanying figure is a hub representing the CEO plus his or her close confidantes. They represent the cabal. Emanating out of the hub are the spokes, at the ends of which are the business units. The sole purpose of the workshop is for the business unit heads to feed their five-year plans and projections into the central cabal, which acts like a gigantic sponge absorbing this information. The cabal then decides on overall company strategy in a completely separate forum. The business unit heads never get to participate in such a discussion. They merely talk about their own unit’s future. No rim joins them around the periphery because no general conversation takes place on the overall business. They are effectively ‘siloed’.

How far west do you think the pioneers of American frontier life would have got if their wagon wheels had been without rims? They would have got bogged down just outside of Boston. But how many companies adopt this approach because of an autocratic CEO who wants to keep strategy all to himself, or maybe include one or two of his close chums? Plenty!

In contrast, we believe in circles when it comes to effective strategic sessions: conversation circles. For the whole business. We believe that the forward movement of a company into extraordinary times can only be ensured if the direction of the conversation is circular. Each part of the conversation tips into the next part in a fairly seamless manner. So in sessions we facilitate we prefer to have the executive team sitting literally at a round table, with everybody in sight of each other and having an equal voice. Sometimes this requires a cultural change which is hard to imagine. In one company, the CEO was nicknamed ‘the handbrake’ for the dampening effect he had on the conversation. But if it happens the way it should, the results can be truly remarkable. We’ve had directors privately coming up to us afterwards and saying that it was the best strategy session they had ever attended.

There are reasons. As business organisations grow, they need to draw more and more on the expertise of those within the organisation. Where better to find it than in your top executive team? In the so-called knowledge economy, ‘flatter’ structures are the embodiment of the modern organisation. They encourage the free flow of ideas and energy between all the elements of the organisation, thereby promoting buy-in and innovation across the board. While some, mainly larger, organisations still cling on to the old hierarchical ladders, most organisations that value creativity encourage ideas to bubble up from below. Approachability is a key characteristic of managers in these new structures. Gone are the days when decisions either ‘trickled down’ or were ‘thrust down’, depending on the personality of the heavyweight at the top.

The direction of conversation in a ‘flat’ structure is more circular. Ideas are passed on for continual assessment, review and adaptation, and subsequently these ideas build momentum and direction. Unlike the spokes of a rimless wagon wheel, the flow of conversation around a circle is, by its very nature, inclusive, and the points are contextualised. Contributors to the conversation see the value of their input being recognised by peers and more senior and junior staff. More importantly, they are given an opportunity to gain insight and perspective into the reason for the organisation’s existence. As scenario strategists, we see the value in extending scenario sage Peter Schwartz’s belief that “scenario planning must be intensely participative or it fails”. We believe that all planning must be intensely participative or it fails. Hence every level of an organisation should have conversation circles in which strategy is discussed.

When the strategic conversation is circular, it flows like a current through the heads of all the people sitting around the table, creating its own ‘field of alignment’. This method of conversation allows those involved to escape (at least temporarily) from the silos of their business units to capture the bigger picture. They consequently have a better idea of their role in ensuring the company’s overall success. A conversation circle has other associated advantages: it encourages a richness that can only come out of diversity, enabling greater insight into the views of people from disparate backgrounds; it sends a clear message of an organisation’s commitment to participative management; and the inclusivity of the process recognises individual input, thereby developing an environment that respects and retains talent. Above all, it’s meant to be fun. Not like those sombre affairs where pearls of wisdom are passed down by important people speaking in slow and measured tones to a gathering of staff in the canteen. This is cut and thrust, a chance in a lifetime to air your views. And guess what? People are more creative when they are having fun and feeling relaxed. Think of the atmosphere in the local pub!

For all the reasons given so far, any strategic conversation within an organisation ought to cascade through the entire organisation. Conversation circles should start at the top and work their way down over a period of months. Obviously, the further down you go in the organisation, the more specific the conversation becomes and the more it revolves around the tactical roles departments should play in winning the game. Nevertheless, while the direction of the company may be formulated at the senior executive level, it is important for all employees to understand the company’s direction and be part of the strategic thinking process, as this creates alignment and a sense of purpose within the company. Hence, some of the material discussed at CEO level should find its way down, and original comments on it from employees should find their way up. Wisdom is not the preserve of the senior management team alone.

Our recommendation is, in a way, a top-down democratic approach. Not in the narrow sense of democracy which means giving everyone the vote. But in the wider sense of granting people the right to have their say and deliberate on the issues of the moment – business by discussion if you please. If it doesn’t happen (and we’re afraid that in most companies it doesn’t), the employees just come to work to collect their cheques. They’re not involved. They don’t understand the objectives. Think of two professional soccer teams being requested to play a soccer game for ninety minutes where there are no goalposts. They run around, dribbling here, dribbling there, passing the ball back and forth all over the pitch, then change ends and do exactly the same. There’s no score at the end because there are no goals to shoot at. Imagine what that does for the motivation of the two teams and their performance. A variation is to demand that the two teams play the game where there are goalposts but they are being continually shifted. This doesn’t do much good for morale either. Yet some CEOs just can’t make up their mind on strategy. They chop and change, depending upon which management consultant they have in tow.

As facilitators we don’t like prepared papers on strategy. They straitjacket people, put them in a groove. Instead we encourage those involved in our conversation circle just to bring their accumulated knowledge and experience to the table so that they contribute spontaneously to the discussion. We are more concerned with the depth and breadth of the conversation than its length (although as we’ve mentioned our conversations tend to be much shorter than the average workshop). Primarily we want people to think out of the box.

But let’s be frank – inclusive conversation can be a beast to manage and it invariably requires a certain level of harmony and a special kind of leader. Opponents of ‘flat’ organisational structures, for example, will talk about the dangers of completely open, unstructured conversations that may dilute the decision-making responsibilities of management and slow down the implementation of strategy. This argument is more frequently advanced as a company grows and an established decision structure is essential. The desire for management to control operations in order to ensure the maintenance of focus is understandable; but images of a babbling free-for-all put forward by the more power-retentive management types misconstrue the idea of an ‘inclusive conversation’. It is quite possible for strategic conversations to be open and inclusive, but at the same time businesslike and intense – as long as they are carefully structured. Moreover, conversation circles need not interfere with standard lines of authority and decision-making chains, if – like any other function – they are given a specific remit, and are properly scheduled. However, if these words don’t alleviate your anxieties, just use our conversation model at the most senior executive level. It will definitely shorten the annual strategy session and make it productive.

Returning to our concept that conversation circles can create a ‘field of alignment’, they are an ideal tool for resolving conflict between contending parties, each with their own interests and perception of the game. Before negotiations begin in earnest, a strategic conversation along the lines suggested lays the groundwork for a common understanding of the game in which the parties are represented (as well as a mutual understanding of each other’s roles). Negotiations have a better chance of success, particularly if the consequences of failure are mapped out in a credible scenario. In this vein, an interesting use of our technique was to structure a discussion on the future of the game bird population in South Africa. Present were the shooters, the environmentalists, the farmers and the safari operators. By the end of the session, everyone was aware of the rules of the game for conserving the unparalleled number of species of game birds that exist in South Africa. Probably the industry in South Africa in most need of such a discussion is the health care industry. What is the role of the public and private sectors in winning the health care game for the country as a whole? What is the downside of losing the game?