Understanding Emergent Strategy in Organizations

Marc Sniukas podcast clip. All strategy is both deliberate and emergent. It is deliberate because strategy framework design is an intentional act to create a guiding light for decisions and actions as you implement. It is emergent because that guiding light is not specific about all that will be done. It is not just a list of choices, plans, and initiatives. The core is the strategy rule and tactical policies that are like “guardrails on a highway...that direct and constrain action without fully defining its content”, as Richard Rumelt stated. No one has the details of what has to be done. The only difference between what are popularly, but incorrectly, called deliberate and emergent strategies is the degree of constraint imposed. The greater the certainty, the greater the constraint. There is an Emergent 𝘼𝙥𝙥𝙧𝙤𝙖𝙘𝙝 to strategy, that reflects this reality. But all strategies are deliberate and emergent. #EmergentApproach #Petercompo #Strategydesign #Innovation

Today, effectively doing "strategy" requires a heavy amount of rituals and top-down commandments for teams to do those rituals. In this post, I'm going to propose a different model: Emergent Strategy. - Without regular rituals, your strategy gets out-of-date weeks after its published. - Without top-down commandments, strategy meetings are the first to get declined when people get busy. Most leaders don't have the willpower to invest the time and social capital to do strategy effectively. Consequently, many companies end up in worst-of-both worlds where they waste a moderate amount of energy on a low-impact strategy. At DoubleLoop, we're experimenting with a different model: Emergent Strategy. Instead of spending time on endless strategy meetings, what if leaders were to by default just let teams work? With AI, we can (1) infer the implicit strategy behind the actions that teams are taking and (2) visualize the strategy for leaders to observe. When the implicit (or emergent) strategy veers off course, leaders can intervene and point teams in a different direction. But with emergent strategy, the default state changes from "wait until leaders share the strategy" to "work on things that you think are most important based on ground-truth." Here's an example of a report we generated with AI *based on Slack history alone.* The AI assistant generates a business driver tree for the company's vertical/stage, and then overlays a heat map of where the company is spending energy or not. This view was generated with no incremental "strategy" work from the team, yet it still gives leadership a big picture view of what is happening and where they need to step in. If you want to experiment with a radically lower effort way to do strategy, hit me up.

#BadassBookAlert: The Emergent Approach to Strategy by Peter Compo Peter Compo’s The Emergent Approach to Strategy takes a refreshing and pragmatic stance against traditional, rigid strategic planning models. Drawing from systems thinking, Compo challenges the classic linear approach to strategy—where companies define a fixed destination and march toward it, arguing instead for an adaptive, emergent strategy that evolves through continuous learning, iteration, and real-world feedback. At the heart of Compo’s argument is the principle of “strategic learning”, a concept inspired by biology, complexity science, and modern innovation methodologies like Lean and Agile. He asserts that the world is too unpredictable for rigid long-term planning, and organizations should instead operate with flexible guardrails that enable them to respond dynamically to change. This perspective aligns well with contemporary service design, product management, and organizational strategy, making it especially relevant for industries facing high uncertainty, like healthcare and technology. Compo introduces the Adaptive Loop, a cycle of observing, learning, and adjusting, which mirrors concepts like Continuous Improvement (Kaizen) principles from LEAN Six Sigma. He emphasizes "strategic constraints", rules that guide decision-making while allowing for adaptability, similar to Amazon’s “disagree and commit” principle or Google's OKRs. I really loved this book and what sets it apart is the blend of academic rigor and practical application. Compo draws from real-world examples across industries, offering frameworks that can be applied immediately. However, some readers may find his writing style a bit dense at times, as the book covers a broad range of disciplines, from evolutionary theory to corporate case studies. Who Should Read This? ✅ Business strategists, product managers, and organizational designers looking for a more flexible approach to planning. ✅ Leaders in rapidly changing industries who need to balance structure with adaptability. ✅ Service designers and UX professionals interested in applying emergent strategy to customer experience and innovation. Compo delivers a compelling case for adaptive strategy, making this book a must-read for those frustrated with outdated, rigid strategic models. If you believe in continuous iteration over fixed plans, this book will resonate deeply. While it occasionally leans into complexity, the payoff is a powerful, actionable framework for navigating an unpredictable world. #Strategy #BusinessDesign #ServiceDesign #LEAN6Sigma

Strategy as a population-wide pattern of action cannot be chosen by anyone but rather emerges in the interplay of individual intentions and choices in local inter-actions. This presents radical challenges to the dominant discourse in all its forms because it questions the ability of leaders and others to change the 'whole' in any direct manner. They may be articulating desires for the population-wide pattern, the 'whole', but this will be a gesture into the ongoing conversation and what happens will depend upon the responses evoked in many, many local interactions. All anyone can ever do, no matter how powerful, is engage intention-ally, and as skilfully as possible, in local interaction, dealing with the consequence in an ongoing manner as they emerge. Many practical activities such as organisational change programmes, strategic planning, the nature of leadership, the meaning of control, and so on, need to be re-thought if one takes this perspective. Strategic Management and Organisational Dynamics: The Challenge of Complexity to Ways of Thinking About Organisations 5th Edition by Ralph D. Stacey