The Way

The Way: Strategic Basis of Sustainable Value Creation (e.g. ’The Way’) is the heart and soul of SI 2 Dynamism. Rather than merely worrying about how profitable a market space is, The Way is about the purpose, mission, vision, ethical value, and supporting strategic communication behind the change from and to direction many people are looking for, starting where we live: in Our Municipalities. The Way refers to the classic strategy model of means, ways, and ends… which actually comes from the military. The US House Committee on Ways and Means is about taxes and budgets. For a long time, municipal governing has been about strategic plans and even comprehensive plans that direct the budget. The budget is the strategy.

For local leaders looking to connect differently accross the nation, there are many associations and movement to join. Most are not about rethinking strategy, innovation, and risk in general terms applicable to many, many disciplines and subset economic, environmental, societal, and governance (EESG) challenges, solutions, and outcomes… which are nonetheless often of common interest to most US municipalities and the government, business, academic, nonprofit, healthcare, and education leaders.

The Way is for anyone to stop and reflect on why, how, what, who for, and of what quality we want to take off on any given new direction… or chose to not change this or that. Transformation for the sake of announcing and leading something that looks and sounds like transformation may not be the strategy, innovation, and risk package that’s most sustainable. The Way is central StratGen model for working with Daniel Kahneman’s System 1 and System 2 thinking from his book Thinking, Fast and Slow as we work through any given project or initiative in the SI 2 Lab or through a client co-created project employing StratGen SI 2 Dynamic Services.

The manner in which the concepts of purpose, mission, vision, values, and principles have been integrated in the past may have many great examples. Otherwise, it seems like a bit of a mystery so far and The Way ideally resonates for many as a fall back framework when overwhelm sets in. Of course, investing resources in any given strategic initiative prior to sorting out an integrated raison d’être may not be that fruitful.

As we work out the Sustainable Value Creation reason for being with The Way, it all comes together in a Strategy Statement. More in-depth plan components, including business plans, come into sight subsequently.

Strategy is about achievement long range. The budget gets to be checked to see if the strategic outcomes are arriving as planned; planning attempts that can go back years. If the desired achievements are not arriving, the solutions are in strategic management; or Municipal Strategic Management… or lack thereof. Meaning we are not loading in the correct ways or doing strategy; and what the strategic achievements are supposed to be. Anthropogenic Climate versus Climate Protection is a great example of what we’ve got versus where we needed to land in 2025.

In terms of ways, StratGen uses off the shelf software that the SI 2 Lab members can easily access. Many municipal governments are investing in sophisticated strategic management software platforms. However, software doesn’t inherently generate ethical and transformative sustainability value; AI (Artificial Intelligence) being a central example. Schumpeter Waves, or innovation cycles, can be about profitability versus a new General Purpose Technology that actually matches human and planetary health requirements.

The point of SI 2 versus this prior Strategic Innovation 1.0 landscape of the ‘next big thing’ as to systemized corporate, academy driven, and government innovation waves is to democratize the process and outcomes. Surely such a democratization of ‘game changing’ is acceptable for American Liberal Democracy requirements in these times of trial. We deserve our own system for strategic innovation.

The SI 2 Lab and the StratGen SI 2 Dynamic Services allows more people to connect across the nation about our major strategic issues. While municipal government can hire StratGen for projects; the SI 2 Lab membership is extended to mayors, council members, city managers, and their staff. It’s called disintermediation instead of StratGen chasing after the perfect RFPs (Request for Proposal).

More to follow