Vlerick Alumni Keynote : Mikko Kosonen

Yesterday I was at the Vlerick Alumni Event: "Keynote speech: Strategic Agility and Innovation by Mikko Kosonen"

"Mikko Kosonen is a rare combination of a line executive and management academic.
He will talk - based on his practical Nokia experience and research - about those management & leadership principles that allow companies (and any organization) to be creative and innovative.Former advisor to the management of Nokia for many years, he is now President of Sitra, an independent public foundation with a mission to build a successful Finland for tomorrow.
Mikko Kosonen completed a Doctor's thesis in Economic Sciences (International Business) and has published several books and articles on strategic management."

You can find some of the presentatio slides here : Strategic Agility

I found his speech on Strategic Agility very interesting. He gave examples of IBM which were specially interesting : I have worked 2 years at IBM.

For the complete story I guess you should have a look at the Book : Fast Strategy.


After this speech, here are some of my learning points to achieve strategic Agility :

Strategic Sensitivity

• Stay open and Look outside
  
• Work with different people (cognitive difference)
  

Leadership Unity

• As a CEO, break the silos by focusing on Integration meetings rather than (boring) business unit reporting meetings. We have all seen meetings where you politely need to wait finish to report on how great they are and the how difficult it is for them to perform.
  
  
• Focus on dialogue rather than Debate
  
  
• "Don't give clear objectives, rather fuzzy objectives". Well I don't agree with that statement. I would rather say : "Give other objectives". At corporate level you should switch from specific "Business" Objectives to "Agility" Objectives, each busines unit being there to find out and achieve its own objectives.
  

• Sometimes it makes sense to have a manager that doesn't understand the business. Mr Kosonen encourages job rotation. Ok but than let's explain the idea and the concept to people reporting to those guys. The idea is again to create dialogue. Because in the field we are all told that we need to understand our customer's business in addition to our own business.
  

Resource Flexibility

• In order to achieve Agility, resources should be pooled and not assigned to a Barony...