No one role for Heads of Strategy?

Published on June 15, 2015

Paul Barnett Follow

Advancing the Professional Practice of Strategic Management 5 1 0
and Valueism in the Pursuit of Sustainable Prosperity
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The following was written by Joe Whitehead of the Ashridge Strategic Management Centre.
It is one of several research insights that he will be presenting at the Chief Strategists Club
Dinner organised by the Strategic Management Forum on June 30th (Details). it is the
second in a series of short articles. Read the first here and the second here and the third
here

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In this article I refer to the way several Heads of Strategy said they see their roles when I
interviewed them. This illustrates how diverse the role is in practice"

We all have our view of what a Head of Strategy does. But, my research suggests that it
varies very widely across different organisations, and one HoS may play different roles in
different situations. This is consistent with general research on teams – there are a wide
range of roles.

As any strategist will agree, it pays to have a broad view of the options. What do you think
of the following list? What would you add or change?

Because people use different language to represent similar roles, I have not picked one label
for any of these various roles – but provided a range of options.

Advisor, Questioner, Challenger, Critical Partner or Sympathetic Ear

For example one strategist sees his role as asking pertinent questions. He expressly avoided
trying to project his own opinions directly into discussions as he believed it vital that those
who had to implement the strategy needed to also create it.
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Expert in knowledge or strategic thinking

Strategists often make it there business to be experts in strategic concepts, tools, frameworks
and processes.

Creator, Innovator, Vision setter

At an insurance company, the head of strategy saw their role as bringing in new ways of
thinking about the industry – for example, how to move from being a provider of a product,
to a more holistic provider of risk management services. Another strategist, at a media
company was brought in partly to inject new ideas about social media and how content is
delivered in developing countries, into the strategy team. A recent McKinsey’s report on the
HoS identified two types of strategist associated with creativity and future thinking.

Process designer

One of the most important achievements of a senior strategist at an industrial company was
to develop a particular strategic process that helped the company develop its portfolio over
several years. This process contained many typical features of strategy processes – but was
honed to fit the company and its management teams.

Process facilitator, coordinator

Another strategist not only designed a strategic planning process, he also played an
important part in running the process – being an intermediary between the strategy and
finance functions, working with the CEO and the Business unit leaders.

Leader, decision maker/proposer

One strategist has 600 people reporting to her, plus about another 2000 who report up via a
joint venture she is also responsible for. She is responsible for many important decisions and
processes that help the airline optimise its customer offer and costs, including allocating
planes to markets, deciding the final daily schedule, negotiating and managing alliances, the
delivery of major cross-functional priorities, and infrastuctural, economic and environmental
policy.

Controller, monitor

At an industrial services company, the Head of Strategy is responsible for initiating certain
bolt on acquisitions. After these have been passed over to the businesses to manage, he is
still responsible for monitoring the progress of the acquisitions and their performance once
acquired.

Capability builder, coach

One HoS, played an important role in building up the strategic capability of the company.
The strategy function was a conduit through which new hires could arrive, get involved in a
particular strategic issue for a part of the business, and then be transitioned into that business
to assume line responsibilities and bring in new DNA.

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Would you like to hear more at The Chief Strategists Club Dinner? The event is for CSOs,
Heads of Strategy, CEOs, Directors and other senior C-Suite Executives

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Mihai Ionescu • Following 3y

• Strategy Management • 8000+ followers • 6600+ connections • 2600+ endorsements

It's the CSO (Chief Strategy Officer), the head of the OSM (Office of Strategy Management),
covering nine functions that are described in detail in the Kaplan-Norton BSC Framework
(Execution Premium Process - XPP).

It's not a public documentation, but those interested in what are the detailed roles of the CSO
and OSM, along the Strategy Formulation & Execution cycle, don't need to look any further
than the XPP (it's a technical documentation, not a set of general or intuitive considerations).

XPP has been issued more than seven years ago (first version) - no excuse for those interested
in how Strategy works to say they haven't heard about this.
.
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