Do you remember the last time you and your family or friends drove to a city you had not visited before? You were probably excited to find new adventures or at least your hotel. What if every street you turned down was a dead end? No way to get to your hotel, no new sites, no museums, no shops and no new adventures. Sounds frustrating, demoralizing and even likely to cause tension and conflict!
The same thing can happen when we use strategies that send our change efforts down dead end roads. Yet we often do this as leaders without being aware of it. One common strategy tool is SWOT (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats). A study by Harold E. Klein and Mark D’ Esposito published in 2008 suggests that SWOT analysis and planning actually brings change to a screeching halt at “mental dead ends.” The creativity and complexity involved in successful change requires a different type of strategy and thinking than SWOT analyses create. Their work, and other research in neurocognition and neuroleadership, indicates that we need to use strategy tools that evoke richer mental imagery, more expansive thinking, and fewer either-or choices than a traditional SWOT activity.
Last October Anita shared a strategy tool in her post, Let your vision SOAR, that we use in our work. The open-ended questions used in creating strategy with SOAR (Strengths, Opportunities, Aspirations and Results) engage people and help them create rich mental images of future opportunities, aspirations and results. Using SOAR to develop your change strategy leverages how our brains actually work and can help you avoid dead ends in your change efforts.
Todd Thorsgaard
Higher EDge 