The idea for the company started in the fall of 1996 while I was involved with a project in Toronto Canada. I sat with the Senior Vice President (SVP) of a global company with headquarters in the US. We were listening to a presentation on how two particular business units were going to merge.

The General Manager started the meeting and gave a good overview via PowerPoint. Then the Director of Finance flooded us with reams of reports and numbers painting the financial picture of the plan. The Marketing Director and the Operations Director both took their turns. And the Sales Director ended the meeting by bringing in some of the key salespeople and discussing specific key clients. Everyone was well rehearsed and on cue. It was the perfect strategy presentation.

I was impressed. During the break I leaned over to the SVP and said, “These guys have covered all the bases. I think we can expect some great things!”

The SVP was a seasoned executive. He was previously one of the senior people of Wang Computers in the ‘70’s and had been talked out of retirement to take this position. He had certainly seen his share of “perfect strategy presentations.”

“Never be impressed with what they say they are going to do,” he cautioned me. “Wait until they do it.” Then he gave me my assignment. For the next three months I was to work with the team and help them do what they just said they were going to do. Then with a smile, he announced my assignment to the group and excused himself. He got on a plane and left.

Now that the SVP was gone, the real issues started to come out. The call center was having personnel problems, the warehouse had inventory that had become obsolete, the sales team needed new clients, and there were problems with the accounting software. It soon became very apparent this team was sweating details they didn’t want discussed during the perfect strategy presentation. What looked like a straightforward plan on paper was now a minefield of real issues that would need to be addressed.

Over the course of the next three months the team went to work and solved problems, met challenges and hit their quarterly numbers. They went on to hit their annual goals as well. They even invited me back to celebrate with them at a management retreat. And as the SVP was formally recognizing them for their success the thought that stuck with me was that the best strategic thinking took place after the PowerPoint was turned off and after the SVP was long gone. The real nature of Strategic Thinking was found in building the vision, not in the presentation of it.

That experience along with many similar ones gave birth to idea of The Nature of Strategic Thinking. The work of most strategy consultants culminates in delivering the perfect PowerPoint strategy presentation given to the senior team, a board of directors, or a federal regulator complete with documentation valued by the pound. Yet time and time again, the success of a strategy, or its failure depends on the Strategic Thinking going on after the PowerPoint is turned off and the consultants have all gone home.

The Nature of Strategic Thinking is about taking the best strategic tools, processes and techniques at the organizational level and using them at the business unit, department, and professional levels of the organization where the best thinking should be taking place on a daily basis.