No matter how hard you try,
I’ve never learn everything about a company by myself.
[But if you work alone, you’ve got me there!]
Knowing how to develop tailored strategies,
Is only as useful as knowing what there is to tailor.
What I’ve had at my disposal, and the expertise, skills, and knowledge
I could actually use.
A good strategist is a collector
Drawing out organizational know-how,
Harnessing shared understanding, wisdom, and experiences.
Collecting the nuggets of wisdom that others have,
And building it into a foundation.
These insights, the vibrant, collective intelligence of an organization,
Are what I call “Generalisms.”
They’re the keys that open doors,
And build bridges across the value streams of your company.
But where to start?
For me, I make a list; an overall map of organizational intelligence.
I start with departments, divisions, and teams, double-checking along the way,
Tracing the flow of how work actually gets done.
I pay special attention to overlooked groups, those with unique impact,
To inputs, processes, and outputs.
Then I look for people,
leaders, figureheads, and subject-matter experts.
And sometimes, people who just didn’t hit “send to voicemail” fast enough.
I ask colleagues, both within and outside my team,
Partners, clients, vendors, stakeholders.
From there, I scan current initiatives,
A quick look at LinkedIn, or click the “organization” button on Teams
[Hey, any data is good data here].
From this process, I’ll find dozens of people to talk to,
Loaded with insights, brimming with experience,
Holding years of knowledge on who does what, how it gets done,
And why it matters.
Individually, each Generalism looks like a fragment,
But together they form a massive dataset;
A story of what makes an organization unique,
And the building blocks for a unique strategy.
The joy is in finding, compiling, and incorporating them.
In any company, they’ve given me a panoramic view,
Filling out the map with where we can go,
And the people, processes, and possibilities that can take us there.
