Art and Science of Strategy in Large Corporations: How to Navigate Politics, Dependencies, and Alignment
Art and Science of Strategy in Large Corporations: How to Navigate Politics, Dependencies, and Alignment
Hey! Nacho here. This is the last episode of season 3 of 100 Product Strategies.
Season 4 will be different, interviewing thought leaders about strategic challenges:
Strategy & Discovery with Teresa Torres
Unboxing the Messy Middle of Strategy with John Cuttler
Connecting Strategy and OKRs with Jeff Gothelf
It starts next week, so if you are not a subscriber yet, this is a great time to join :)
While strategy is always difficult, large corporations add complexities into the mix: dependencies, politics, complex budgeting processes, and more.
In this episode, I spoke with Phil Hornby, a Product Coach with vast experience in different contexts, and we discussed his experience with the product strategy for a business unit within Continental, a large German automotive company.
Phil shared great examples and tips on how to gain alignment, deal with politics and dependencies, handle risk, and much more!
Listen now on Apple, Spotify, Google, and YouTube, and read on for my takeaways and highlights of the episode.
Takeaways
Phil mentioned many options for creating strategy, like Gibson Biddle’s models, Roger Martin’s Playing to Win, and diagnosis analysis like SWOT.
In larger organizations, a concrete realization of the portfolio strategy is often how the company invests in the different business units.
Phil gives a great example of how setting the right vision can unlock a new set of strategic insights by understanding that the playing ground and what we are trying to achieve is greater than what we are doing in the next few months.
Enterprise strategy is riddled with politics. We need to be careful with what assets the company is trying to leverage and evaluate if and how they can really be leveraged in our own product.
Enterprises have the opportunity to expand their portfolio by investing in more products. However, they may pass on really huge opportunities to keep their positioning and focus (Phil mentioned the high-volume and cheap vs. premium as an example). As product leaders, we need to be aware of it to make aligned decisions and avoid presenting ideas that don’t fit into this overarching strategy.
When discussing the appetite for risk in the strategy, Phil gave me a magnificent contrarian view of my conventional wisdom: instead of thinking that enterprises may be more risk averse, they may be willing to invest more and be more patient to see a new product or unit develop since they have deeper pockets.
One of the most significant differences in startup vs. enterprise for product leaders doing strategy is the corporate theater: goal alignment, budget rounds, etc., tend to be more formal and less flexible.
One of the biggest aha moments for me was the need for larger organizations to have more stable plans. It’s not that this is bad leadership or lack of agility: there are simply more dependencies, stock predictability, more commitments to large customers, etc. This also means that you may need to do more discovery upfront because chances will be harder to change with new learning along the way.
Where to Find Phil’s Work
Phil’s site: For Product People
Phil’s roadmaps channel: Talking Roadmaps
You can see a list of all episodes to date here. Don’t miss the next episode with Teresa Torres! Join our substack and be notified when the next episode is published.