Skill Meet Desire, Desire Meet Skill

For the past 10 years I have worked in Corporate America, for the 10 years prior to that I worked on the edges of these corporations in the agency world—specifically digital. Over the past eight years I have focused primarily on building business cases to get funding for projects that enable change through the use of technology. It’s actually been a super cool career, but lately one that I have challenges with—specifically with the industry practice and focus on “Disruption.”

It often seems like disruption is the end goal as opposed to a means and an end. I’m not sure who in any company is thinking about how disruption effects our society as whole, changes our culture and impacts the lives of everyday people. Companies need people who do “Disruption Impact Analysis.” Also, disruption is counter-intuitive to my end goal which is building a practice of understanding.

“Strategy is a commodity, execution is an art .” — Peter Drucker

So, over the course of these eight years—I have worked with frameworks—these are categories, classifications and steps, that help a company develop roadmaps that lead up to grander visions and five (or whatnot) year plans. Most companies try and develop their own “approach” to these frameworks, using proprietary language, and developing one or two clever “steps” but they all serve the same or similar purposes. Go ahead and google strategic framework, here are the basic steps, think of them in a circle, one feeding into another: Determine Mission, Identify Goals, Understand Internal Factors, Understand External Factors, Perform SWOT Analysis and Define Strategy OR Gather Facts, SWOT Analysis, Review Inputs, Strategic Matrix, Define Strategies, Review and Adjust. All of the outputs of these planning processes, fit nicely inside something called a Strategy House.

My goal is to use the same skills I’ve used to develop strategic plans, roadmaps and business cases, to define the steps one should take to Build a Practice. This is where my desire will meet my skill and visa versa.