CEO’s, Strategists, Executives, and basically all of us know better what “we don’t want” than what we want. This not only applies to strategy but also to life in general. Think about it at a personal level. When you were 15 years’ old and were asked to choose what you wanted to be and therefore study you probably knew well what you did not wanted to do. For example, I don’t know if I want to be a Lawyer, an Economist, or an Accountant but I do know that I don’t want to be a Surgeon!
As Michelangelo carved out of the piece of marble anything that was not David, when developing strategy and transformations a robust and practical approach is to define “what is not” part of the strategy. This is often clearer than what it is part of the strategy. The idea is to keep optionality but remove everything you know is not a direction you want to take. This helps to remove noise and discussions around things that are not essential to the strategy so you can be more focused and impactful.
If you keep all options open all the time, you are not committing to anything and therefore you are not advancing the discussion and you will not be making decisions to make it real. You will be distracted by something new that popped-up in your mind, interesting but not core, essential or meaningful. Let’s face it, the future is uncertain and impossible to predict but somehow what is unlikely to happen is easier to predict than what will probably happen.
PSI: the picture shows the Rondanini Pietá, unfinished and emerging from a piece of marble as a graphic example of via negativa applied to a piece of marble and how beauty emerges through removing what doesn’t belong (can be seen at Castello Sforzesco in Milan).