Behind the scenes at the Outthinker Chief Strategy Officer Summit

RITA MCGRATH

Thought Sparks

Behind the scenes at the Outthinker Chief Strategy Officer Summit

There is nothing like gathering with a group of peers from other organizations and sectors to facilitate making sense of the context in which crucial strategic decisions need to be made. I was pleased to be an invited guest to the Outthinker CSO Summit, with the main topics being how organizations are using AI and what’s next at the intersection of strategy, innovation and organization.

Rita McGrath Thought Sparks

Talking AI and strategy One of the sessions focused deeply on what effect AI is likely to have on strategy. Clearly, the ability to summon massive amounts of information at low cost at the touch of a button is likely to create big changes for a field that has for a long time relied heavily on analytics and data-drilling to pry insights out of generic data.

A predictable effect is that conventional strategy analysis is likely to speed up. As one participant put it (to chuckles all around), “now you can skip the first 3 days of your strategy offsite because AI can give you a contrast to your biases and you can get right down to the stuff you nearly always give short shrift to at the end of the meeting….”

Rita McGrath Thought Sparks

Strategy is relatively straightforward….but the organization? Not so much.

A huge topic of conversation was that while AI might help with analytics, it’s much less clear how it will influence the organizational commitment necessary to make it happen throughout the organization. How do you translate lofty strategic ambitions to the actions that need to be taken at the front line?

Rita McGrath Thought Sparks

Total recall has arrived

In 2009 at the World Economic Forum in Davos, I led a session called “Total Recall” in which I posited a world – not too far away – where every meeting, interaction, discussion, and document could be captured, stored, indexed, and retrieved for the viewing of anyone with access privileges. You can see a recording of the talk I gave at this link.

Rita McGrath Thought Sparks

Strategy and the ‘permissionless’ organization

During my session, I made the observation that strategy is increasingly transient, but that many organizations have not yet grappled with the implications.

One construct that I believe is going to be increasingly important is that of eliminating bureaucratic controls and replacing them with controls that have to do with guardrails, rather than tollgates, as I’ve written about previously.

More on that definitely still to come!

Rita McGrath Thought Sparks

Meanwhile, at Valize

We’re delighted to have launched our first impact guide collection! Think of it as a living textbook that you can use to upskill your own thinking or that of your teams. We have a roadmap for bringing more and more of these online in the weeks and months to come. We’re also getting great traction with our SparcHub software – software designed to bridge the gap between having a great idea and turning it into something you can bring to market.

Despite all of the powerful tools at our disposal, most organizations are still managing this process using spreadsheets! You can see a recorded demo of the system at this link.

Rita McGrath Thought Sparks

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