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I passionately believe that strategic communication is critical to success in business and inlife.
But we must also think about strategy and how we communicatethat.
Many of us focus on our day-to-day work on just the tasks we need to complete and executing themwell.
Taking time to reflect on strategy in our organizations and our own life can help us besuccessful.
I'm Matt Abrahams and I teach strategic communication at Stanford Graduate School ofBusiness.
Welcome ThinkFastTalkSmart, thepodcast.
I am very excited to speak with JesperSoonson.
Jesper is a professor of organizational behavior at theGSB, along with being the senior associate dean of academicaffairs.
Jesper specializes in dynamics of organizational and strategicchange.
He teaches strategicleadership,crafting, and leadingstrategy.
And along with fellow professor GlennCarroll, Jesperwrote, making greatstrategy, arguing for organizationadvantage.
WelcomeJesper, thanks for beinghere.
I'm super excited for ourconversation.
Thanks for havingme,Matt.
It's really an honor to be on yourpodcast.
Well thankyou. Let's go ahead and getstarted.
You've been studying and teaching strategy for over 25years.
Can you share with us how you define strategy and explain how it's different fromplanning?
Sure. Youknow, I think the taglinehere, theGSB, changelives, changeorganizations, change theworld.
What I always like to tell students is if you want to change theworld, you have to build greatorganizations.
Because large scale change always happens throughorganizations.
And if you're going to build a greatorganization, you have to have the resources to sustain thatorganization.
And strategy is really about explaining how you secure that organization's economicprosperity.
And if you're a publiccompany, that means how do you maximize profitsperhaps.
But even if you're anonprofit, you have to have a strategy that is somehow the logic by which you get enough resources to be able to survive and do what it is you want todo.
Now that's different fromplanning.
Like I think planning is really about the order ofoperations.
It's the sequence of things that you're going todo.
Why it is that you have a reason to do something and what the outcome is going tobe.
And so I think strategy is that sense much more complicated because in order to get the resources that youneed, you have to engage with otheractors.
So you have to engage with your customers and your suppliers and so on and soforth.
And you don't have control overthem.
The thing is about the things that you cancontrol, and strategy is really much more complicated in thatsense.
So it sounds like planning is much moretactical.
Once you have thestrategy, you then invoke the plans to enact thatstrategy.
Exactly. You shared that one of the prime directives for leaders is to focus on building astrategy.
What are some of the mistakes or misconceptions you've found over the years that leaders have about strategy or its role in theirorganization?
So I think the biggest misconception that a lot of managers in organizations have and leaders is that strategy is not theirjob.
So I think in a lot oforganizations, we have this image of strategy being dictated at thetop.
The CEO is going toarticulate, here's what the strategyis.
And it's like a football coach sending the play in from the sideline and then we're all just going to go andexecute.
And so you meet tons of managers who willsay, I don't dostrategy.
I'm just aboutexecution.
But ofcourse, strategy is really about how you're going to best allocate your time and yourresources.
That's ultimately what it'sabout.
And so if you have any responsibility inorganization, you're doingstrategy.
And so you need to be able to engage with thestrategy.
And I think one of the things that happens is that we disempower ourselves if we think about strategy asthat.
The related misconception is then that people think of strategy as kind of like a set it once a year or once every five years kind ofthing.
And then we're just going to go execute on thatplan.
But if you think that strategy isset, youknow, no battle plan survives contact with theeconomy.
Right. And so like as soon as you start to dothings, things start tochange.
And so it's not just about drafting this beautiful architecturalblueprint.
And then hand it off for somebody to go build it because you got to adapt to the changinglandscape.
So I'm hearing you say that strategy is something that everybody owns within anorganization.
It's not just comes down from onhigh.
And that it has to adapt andchange.
I have been part of several organizations where when people say we're going to strategically plan everybody's eyesrole.
And theythink,oh, we're just going to put another document on theshelf.
Or it's just going to sit on some websitesomewhere.
And what I'm hearing you say is that it's living and you have to evolve it and everybody's involved init.
And so that leads me to the nextquestion, which is in your book and teaching you in GlennCarroll, make a very convincing claim that organizations should craft strategyarguments.
Can you share what you mean by a strategyargument?
What arethey? And how can theyhelp?
Well, Glenn and I are trying to do in thatbook.
It'sbasically, youknow, help people think about strategy not as just a set of analyticalframeworks, which is what we teach many times in businessschools.
Right. But the classic way of teaching strategy in a business school is the porter five forces or or or differentiation versus lowcost.
And those are all reallyimportant.
But when you're doing strategy on a day to daybasis, you have to understandlike, how is thisworking?
So it's anexplanation.
And that's how I do think it's related tocommunication.
Right. It's an explanation for how you think you're going tosucceed.
And that's anargument.
And an argument is simply a set of assumptions that lead to aconclusion,right?
Then that force aconclusion.
So what a strategy argumentis, it's a statement about what are the investments and the activities that we are going to undertake that's going to lead us to be able to create and capture economicvalue.
And if we can do thosethings,right, if we can understand the connection between those investments and those activities and how we create economic value and how we capture economicvalue, then we can start to have sophisticated conversations about like what is it that'sworking?
What is it that's notworking?
And it gives us a model through which we can see theworld.
The thing I feel is so powerful about this notion of strategy as an argument isone, it involves how you think aboutit.
Because when we craftarguments, we think about things like who are we speakingto?
What's thecontext? And it implies that this is a conversation that has to behad.
Again, it's not some dictation that comes down fromsomebody.
So I find that reallypowerful.
And it also implies in an argument that there is debate and discussion and change andevolution.
And I think that'sreally, reallyimportant.
And it fits very nicely withwhat, as youknow, I teach strategiccommunication.
And while I talk a lot about the importance of communicatingstrategically, I'm really curious to have you share your thoughts on how communication is important instrategy.
So I think there's two different parts ofthat.
One, just a key off of what you justsaid.
Like I dothink. And in thebook, Glenn andI, we devote an entire chapter to basically thinking about how can you argue constructively as a group in anorganization?
Oftentimes,well, wesay, when weteach, youknow, if we teach MBA students orexecutives, wesay, youknow, you should go and you should argue more in yourorganizations.
And a lot of people are thenlike,whoa,whoa,whoa,wait.
I don't want to do that because what they're hearing isfight.
And we're not saying you should go fight more because a fight is kind oflike, youknow, you're throwing assertions at each other and you're just waiting for somebody to givein.
So it's like a streetfight.
But there are ways to structure debates and arguments so that they areconstructive.
And part of that is about having the ability to listen to somebody else and hear what it is that they're trying to say and hear what their logicis.
I think most people believe things for areason, like they have a reason for believingit.
You might disagree both with their conclusion and with some of theirreasons, but you can't engage constructively in a debate unless you hear them on thatdimension.
And so really it's about how do you structure engagements with each other to create thatspace?
I think the other part of communicating strategically that's really important is when we think aboutdelegation.
So what we know is that if you want to build a greatorganization, you're not going to be able to do thatyourself.
You can't make all of the decisions much as you might wantto.
And so we all know that we have to be able to delegate and we have to be able to empowerpeople.
And we have lots of books that tellus, delegation is wonderful and even the word empowerment sounds sowonderful.
But ofcourse, the truth is most leaders wake up at three in themorning, petrified because they delegated a task to somebodyelse.
And what are theypetrified?
What are they scaredabout?
They're scared that their subordinate is going to make the wrongdecision.
And at three in themorning, what is the wrongdecision?
It's not the decision I would havemade.
So there's thistension.
Look on the onehand, you don't want to make all the decisions and yet you want to make all thedecisions.
Andso, or at least you want somebody who might be closer to the information to make a better decision because they have moreinformation, but you want them to think about it the way you think aboutit.
And then the questionis, how do you get people to think about things the way you think aboutthings?
That's throughcommunication.
So that's about really explaining why you think wewin, why you think we are a successfulorganization, why you think these sets of actions are the things that we need to do in order to accomplish ourgoals.
And so that's where I do think really clear communication is going to be essential to effective strategicleadership.
The fact that you are invoking the power of listening and being willing to engage inconflict, but productive conflict so we can get to a collaborative place with our strategy is a very different way of thinking about strategy ingeneral.
And I think that's really powerful for all of us to thinkabout.
Andclearly, being able to articulate yourstrategy, packaging it and communicating it in a way that not only motivatespeople, but also helps make better decisions is absolutelycritical.
Right. Imean, there's this element of strategy that we haveus, I think most of our stereotype of what strategy is is very topdown.
And so then you wouldthink, youknow, communication is justbroadcasting.
But ofcourse, we also know that lots of great strategies arediscovered.
And they're discovered because the leaders were able to listen to their frontline workers or their frontline managers tellthem, here's something that's even better than what we're doingnow.
And so ofcourse, strategies reallyboth.
It is both top down and bottomup.
And so you have to be able to both be able to articulate what it is that you want to say and where you think we should begoing, but then also be able to listen and hear where you might bewrong.
Because I think the other part that we really emphasize is in anargument,well, how do you make anargument?
You makeassumptions.Yeah.
And assumptions aretestable.
Like they're going to be proven wrong or they're going to be provenright.
And like you have to be open to the possibility that the assumption you made yesterday is turned out to be wrong today and that you therefore need to revise yourtheory.
That doesn't mean you have to go back and giveup, but it means that you have to update your understanding of theworld.
We've talked a lot about testing assumptions and how to really challenge yourself to be open to what the reality is instead of staying fixed on what you thought itwas.
And thank you for re-emphasizingthat.
I have to tell you when I was doing research for ourconversation, I had a big smile on my face when I saw that in your class and in your thinking about strategic communication and communicating aboutstrategy, you talk a lot about how important storytellingis.
And I'm curious if you can help us understand what makes a good story aboutstrategy.
So if you think about strategy as anargument, then I think a natural criterion suggestsitself.
And that criterion islogic.
So a good strategy story on the one hand has a clear narrative to it and you can follow the steps and so on and soforth, but it should also be internallycoherent.
And that is the realm oflogic.
Like philosophers and logicians have spent centuries thinking about how do we assess arguments in terms of whether ornot, like whatever assumptions you'remaking, do the assumptions that you do make lead to the conclusion that you think itdoes.
And that is I think incredibly important in assessing strategy stories and where it's particularly important is when you're doing strategy for thefuture.
Like when you're trying to say here's what we want to be in fiveyears, here's mynarrative.
Well,well, think aboutit, you're telling a story about something that hasn't happenedyet.
And so how do you know whether that's a goodstory?
Like you cansay,well, it resonates with me and inspires me and those are important and usefulcriteria.
But ofcourse, they could also befoolishness.
So you want to also be able tosay,okay, I don't know whether all these assumptions are going to be true and I can't know until Iact.
But at least I want to know whether if they aretrue, will they lead to the outcome that I think they will leadto?
And that's wherewe, youknow, in thebook, Glenn and I get into this somewhat technical set of chapters on thinking about what is logical validity and soundness and so on and soforth, which I think a lot of people were like doing strategy orlike, where did that comefrom?
And I stopped thinking about that in eighth grade or something likethat.
But I do think that holding on to those ideas islike,well, the way we should assess each other's arguments in the first instance is by the extent to which they're internallycoherent.
Right. And one of the things I stronglyadvocated, whenever you're creating contentstories, etcetera, that there is a logicalcoherence, things follow and that there are premises that you couldsupport.
I'm curious to get another dimension of story that I wonder your thoughtson, whichis, once you have astrategy, you have to propagate it in anorganization.
And sometimes I think the most effective way to do that is not putting it on posters or little note cards peoplehave.
It's the stories that leaderstell.
Do you have experience on that or thoughts onhow, once we have thestrategy, how do we actually communicate it and you story to actually motivate people to align to thatstrategy?
Ithink,personal, I totally agree with the premise of yourquestion.
I do think that communication of these stories is really important and I would add like relentlesscommunication.
I think one aspect of that islike, it's very easy to approach management of leadership as an exercising givingorders.
And I think that'sfine.
Like I think there is an element to it that'sabout,again, delegation and givingorders.
But maybe give people a little bit of grace in the sense ofsaying, here'swhy.
Like here's what I'm thinking and just let people into your mind and your logic because then they're going to do a betterjob.
But I just think that's the most importantthing.
And so I think the more you can just be aware of the need to always be communicating what your reasoning is and what your logicis, the better off you'llbe.
I absolutely agree and if people can internalize yourlogic, they can then be able to not only know what they need to do and feel confident that it's the rightthing, they can then communicate it toothers.
So it becomes a way of propagating thatinformation.
And they can more productively disagree withyou.
That'strue. Right because that'strue.
Oh, but wait asecond. You thought that this would going to be true and it'snot.
So nowboss, we got to do somethingdifferently.
Absolutely. I don't expect for anything like that is just like the world was in the way you thought it was and I can help you do a betterjob.
Right. And it allows for that immediate feedback so you can make those adjustments forsure.
Before weend, I'd like to ask you the same three questions I askeveryone.
You okay withthat?Yep.
Allright. Here wego. If you were to capture the best communication advice you've ever received as a five to seven word presentation slidetitle, what would thatbe?
The five to seven words would be a classroom is atheater.
So I had the pleasure of working a number of times actually with a teaching coach named Barbara Lane Brown and she was a former actor and a theaterdirector.
And she really helped me think abouthow, youknow, when you're teaching aclass, which is obviously a very strong form ofcommunication.
Like you're putting on a play and you have to think about all thedifferent, like think about it the sameway.
Solike, youknow, when you're first startingout, forexample, you kind of tend to just kind oflike,okay, let me just starttalking.
And like as opposed to taking command of theroom, like a play doesn't start by somebody just wandering out on stage and deciding to starttalking.
Well, a good playdoesn't.
A good playdoesn't. And a good theater performance has charactersthat, they're differentcharacters.
And so thinking about yourself as an individual and like the different characters that you might deploy in the same class and thinking about engagement with the audience and how you move and all those other kinds ofthings.
It was really powerful for me to change the way I taught and definitely for thebetter.
I have to say that I'm pleasantly surprised and a bitshocked.
I see you as somebody whois, Imean, you're a fantastic teacher and you're very logical andmethodical.
And I love that I now see behind the curtain literally and figuratively that you think about it as aplay.
And I think all of us should think about the theater of ourcommunication.
Now I don't mean we have to beactors.
But think about the way the environment setup.
How are youstarting, as youmentioned?
How do youend? How do you buildexcitement?
And all of those are things that we can learn fromacting.
And thankyou. That'sfantastic.
Who is a communicator that you admire andwhy?
So having listened to yourpodcast,I, ofcourse, knew you're going to ask thisquestion.
Yes. I'm a general terrible at answering questionslike, who's your favoriteex?
I'mso. And so I wasstopped.
No,no,no, that'sfine.
So I texted mykids. My kids are all grown and Isaid, youknow, how should I answer thisquestion?
And one of my sonssaid, BillBellacek, because I'm a big New England Patriotsfan.
And then my other sonsaid, the sweetestchef, because they take himup.
And then my daughtersaid,Emmett, who is ourdog, one of ourdogs.
And I thought about it because what Emmett the dogdoes, he has his amazing ability to get me up with nonverbal communication five thirty in themorning.
Like hisability. So I actuallythought,well,what, what unifies all ofthose?
Because youknow, think about BillBellacek.
No, most people would not think of him as a communicator because he very intentionallyactually, Ithink, is notcommunicating.
He doesn't want to sayanything.
And so I actuallythought,well, while I was trying to make sense ofthat, I'mlike, why would they all say that as a response to what they thought I would love tobe?
And I think it actually has something to do with nonverbalcommunication.
And so then I thought about some more and I actuallythink, youknow, like one of the musicians that I really have always enjoyed and loved is a jazz pianist named KeithJarrett, who has this amazing style ofperformance.
And youknow,again, entirelynonverbal, but you can think about the way great musicians use pacing and rhythm and kind of the ability to create drama without ever sayinganything.
Because I think what I find hard about thisquestion, it's a greatquestion, but I find hard about it is it's so hard to separate the message from the communicationstyle.
So that's where I think the music helps me thinkabout,okay, like I don't really know what the messageis, but I know how it moves me in different kinds ofways.
Well,first, I am glad that I had an opportunity to bring your familytogether.
I was very curious how you were going to have a football coach on my bed and a pet lead tosomething.
But you'reright, nonverbal communication is critical and you are one of the very few people to answer this question focused onnonverbals.
Most people speak about people who communicate and speak in a certainway.
Question numberthree, what are the first three ingredients that go into a successful communicationrecipe?
My first ingredient is not going to surprise given what we've just been talkingabout, but I think the first ingredient is clarify yourlogic.
So be really clear about what your argument is and that saying that clear thinking is what leads to clear writing or clear speaking is reallykey.
And when I'm oftentimes giving feedback on papers to students orwhatever, it's usually about the writing is a mess until they get to the point where they're actually clear about what they're trying tosay, which is oftentimeshard.
So that's not acriticism.
It's just like that's theprocess.
And related to that is writing isrewriting.
You have to keep doingit, what you're doing is you're revising your argument as you goalong.
Secondingredient, I thinkis, imagine what the audience mighthear, not just what yousay.
I think we focus very much on getting the wordsright, but not enough on what the audience's perspective is going to be and how they're going to interpret thewords.
And I think one of the ways that I got better as a case class teacher was to be able to anticipate better how students were going to interpret aquestion, like all the different ways they could interpretit.
And that I think is reallykey.
And then I think the last ingredient I would say is be all parts ofyourself, which goes back to this idea of the classroom as a theater and like you actually have within you many different characters that you employ at differenttimes, the stern person and the joking person and that you shouldn't be afraid of using all of them at the appropriate moments in any given communicationtask.
I really like that notion of bringing your whole self and giving yourself permission to be who you are when youcommunicate.
That's verypowerful. I feel a lot of us put on this communication person instead of who weare.
And that notion of really thinking about the impact of your words on your audience and planning for some of that inadvance, I think speaks very nicely to your strategicthinking.
And clearly logic iscritical.
We've all heard people who just ramble and we wonder why and what makessense.
Well,Jesper, thank you so much for joiningus.
You made quite a convincing strategic argument for the value ofstrategy.
Andfurther, you helped us understand what makes for good strategy and good communication aswell.
Thankyou. Thankyou. Thankyou.
Thankyou. Thankyou. Thankyou.
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