Our Approach
What is strategy?
Unhelpfully, the field of strategy is cluttered and confused by myriad different definitions and even more opinions about how it should be designed and implemented. All too often, what is called strategy simply isn't!
To us, strategy is a shared framework which sets out what needs to be done to bring about a particular desired condition over an extended period of time. Strategy is about how an organisation can best influence its environment in order to create the most favourable possible conditions. In order to fully understand the nature and extent of the problem, it should therefore be unconstrained by limitations of resources.
The challenge for implementation includes finding creative ways in which activity can be coordinated and conducted to encourage or influence such change, taking into account practical as well as resource constraints.
What makes Aperture different?
Every organisation exists within an operating environment. We view that environment as a dynamic system with many different components, each of which inter-acts with all the others. In order to change the system, some or all of these components need to be influenced to behave in a particular way. The sum of that behaviour creates change in the system over time. If that sounds complicated, it really isn't, its really a very simple way of managing complexity.
Designing strategy is all about understanding the components of the system that is required to change. Implementing strategy is about improving that knowledge; learning through targeted engagement about how that system is responding to influence and adjusting activity. We do not apply a sterile, linear template; our approach is built on analysis of, interaction with, and learning from the environment in which we are operating.
Aperture's approach to strategy is different because...
01
We analyse our client's long term objectives within the context of its wider operating environment - the system in which it exists and operates. We do not make distinctions between our client's 'internal' and 'external' environment but treat the whole system as inter-dependent, complex, and adaptive.
03
It is iterative. We expect to have to adjust activities planned in support of a strategy framework as conditions change. In that respect we have a learning approach to the implementation of strategy, which has to be sufficiently rigorous to frame suitable activity, but also flexible enough to allow activity to be tested and adjusted as appropriate.
05
Our attitude to strategy captures and enables rather than stifles leadership intuition. But it also promotes initiative in creating a collaborative, learning organisation and developing responsibility for delivery. People understand better what effect is to be achieved, and that their behaviour makes a significant contribution to that effect.
07
Our approach is suitable for and scaleable across a wide spectrum of international and domestic clients and problem sets, including the public and private sectors, small and medium sized commercial enterprises, multi-nationals, not-for-profit, and everything in between.
02
We believe that it is impossible - or at least unrealistic - to expect strategy to predict outcomes. Situations change because of numerous influences working in different places, at different times, and for different reasons, but cumulatively having an overall effect.
04
For us, strategy focuses on required effect. Activity is planned, conducted, and adjusted during implementation. Design and implementation are intrinsically linked.
06
We focus on the way we want the system to look and behave as a result of our strategic intervention. Our desired 'endstate' therefore describes the system as we want to see it, rather than setting aspirational and often meaningless internal goals and objectives or relying on an esoteric mission statement.
08
We view work on all our service lines through the lens of strategy, thus providing focus and context.
How do we deliver engagement?
Our consulting engagements will always be led in person by, or with the close oversight of, one of our managing partners. In support of our formal Consulting Agreement we will provide an outline project plan describing how we propose to structure our services and deliverables during the engagement, based on listening carefully to your requirements and intentions. This sets the tone and conditions for our engagement partnership.
Our approach is to harvest your ideas, insights, and perspectives and through continual consultation, to facilitate and refine their development in accordance with the project's objectives. Full collaboration is essential to our way of working - your product, our process. For the duration of our engagement we look upon ourselves as part of your team, albeit one which offers fresh perspectives and insights about how to frame the problem statement.
Our approach sets great store by spending time on understanding and analysing the problem set as a system. Every operating environment can be described as a system which includes your organisation and your external stakeholders. There are always a surprising range of other actors, usually unknown or overlooked but who may seek to influence your interaction with the system unconsciously, sub-consciously, or deliberately at some stage. Understanding these potentially complex interactions is key to our engagement and assisting you to illuminate this landscape is one of our key strengths.
Once we have developed an initial map of the system of which you are part, we will seek to define your view of how you wish it to behave following the intervention of your strategy. We will then analyse the key drivers that do most to influence the character and behaviour of the system. This process provides the fundamental building blocks of your strategy, around which the strategy framework will be constructed. Finally, we will help to build an initial package of activities that will kick-off implementation. Our iterative approach thereafter provides a process through which to monitor effect and identify appropriate adjustments to activities in pursuit of desired strategic change.
At all times you and your team are placed at the centre of the development process, facilitated but not dominated by by our experience of what constitutes meaningful and effective strategy.
How do we package our services?
Our core offering is supporting the design and implementation of strategy using our unique, iterative, and intuitive framework of process and analysis. Clearly, the requirements for each of our clients are different, and it may be that we simply support the production of a strategy without assisting with implementation, or even the other way around. But to get best effect from our approach, we recommend a package of support to both strategy development and its execution; the two areas are not distinct, they are inseparable, and the most fundamental mistake in the field of strategy is to disconnect them. Our process specifically provides for adjustment of activity during execution, and therefore we seek continued engagement from strategy formulation through execution.
Our supporting services are all delivered through the lens of our client's strategy. We can provide stand-alone organisational design, development, and change, project and risk management, training and mentoring, and special projects or package elements together to suit requirements. All these fields of interest are mutually supporting, and are usually offered as separate disciplines. We prefer to take an integrated approach in order to achieve best effect and value.
