As with so many things, the issue with strategy is not so much the information out there – it’s the presentation.
There is no grand discovery to be made; no revolutionary process or framework; no groundbreaking new way to think about the discipline. Strategy is strategy. And everything there is to know about it is already at your fingertips.
It’s just that it’s boring.
That’s why I’m fascinated by style. Finding new ways of showing old information so it sticks, and is accessible and exciting to more people.
Now, one interesting presentation device I’ve been thinking about a lot recently is this:
The manifesto.
It’s not complicated. It’s just a format really. You take the information you want to convey, and then you translate it into a series of forceful sounding “maxims” for people to obey. You can do it with anything I suppose:
- The Clean Laundry Manifesto
- The Courteous Meetings Manifesto
- The Dog Grooming Manifesto
…and so you sure as hell can do it with strategy.
And so, to that end, I’ve given it a try with this, The No Bulllshit Strategy Manifesto:
What do you think?
I think it’s got something.
I would go through it and laboriously explain the logic behind each point, but somehow I think that would betray the spirt of the thing. It needs to stand on its own two feet.
Let me know if you’ve any thoughts, or if anything isn’t clear, and in a few weeks I’ll shoot across a revised version.
And of course if you have any other presentation / format ideas for putting across this stuff, then let me know and I’ll give them a crack!
