Kalle reflects on success and failure respectively, from the Operative System‘ABCD-in-Funnel’

This reflection builds on validated empirical facts and experiences from myriad organizations around the world. It focuses on the difference between complete success and failure, respectively.

Success. The overriding success factor is easy to understand. This is validated when leaders are actively engaged in intellectual performance, i.e., (i) take an active part in strategic planning through the Operative System and (ii) understand how it differs from all the “Apps” out there (see below).

Failure. This follows directly as a contrast to the overriding success factor above. In other words, failure happens when leaders fail to take an active part in the Operative system.

What happens automatically when leaders are actively involved?

Cooperation improves around any shared mental model of a game. The shared basics of playing chess, or football, or curing cancer make teams act like one smart brain but possess much larger amounts of data and experience from the variety of experience from their different fields. This naturally requires active leadership, in turn leading to…

Sufficient investments are allocated more directly when leaders are actively involved in applying the Operative System, and so too are the assessments of ROI that follow from the business experience and strategic responsibility of leaders. This is essential for…

Continuity, because of the sense of ownership shared with staff, celebrating success from scalable business innovations as well as avoiding unscalable trajectories. Together, they notice how it becomes easier each ABCD workshop to strategically manage…

Hurdles from failures that are rooted in earlier decisions in society or in-house, learning the difference between such and “bad luck”, and/or seeing them as opportunities to be aggressively managed by use of the Operative System. Rich “C-lists” from repeated ABCD workshops are essential for this purpose. If the D-steps are based on a wide spectrum of possible business ideas, chances increase substantially to solve business dilemmas and overcoming all kinds of hurdles. This speaks directly to the above metaphor of “one smart brain”, that can only be achieved by leaders being actively involved and remember…

Always “going back to basics” every now and then. It is leaders, acting as pathfinders, that can avoid staff falling into Rabbit holes. They are everywhere. By seeing “back-to-basics” as an essential element of leadership, teams are supported to not forget about the systemic, systematic and strategic dimension of the Operative System as a shared mental model.

First, failure from the start, that is, leaders never getting into playing the game. This may occur even when middle management from sustainability or HR departments tries its best to get top management on board, and even when top management feels positive about the Operative System as such. There is a broad spectrum of concrete hurdles behind this, such as…

A perceived haste of reactive, traditional business development in a world of rapidly increasing challenges from unsustainability. This may be naturally followed by…

Reactive leadership traditions rooted not only in current business norms, but also emanating from business schools and/or scientific advice in general, which typically promote…

Reductionist, piecemeal approaches and tools that “everyone else applies.” The most common ones concern a serious and often tragic misuse of good Apps for Sustainable Development. They cannot replace an Operative System, be it the UN SDGs, Science-Based Targets, Circular Economy, Planetary Boundaries, EU reporting directives, or any other App. All of them cover only bits and pieces of the needed systemic, systematic, and strategic perspective for true strategic leadership. But informed by the Operative System, simply by just cross-reading ABCD-in-Funnel planning with any App to get an input of ideas under A, B, C and D respectively, this will increase the value of Apps by keeping them coherently integrated. Just like in the IT world, you cannot replace the Operative System with any app.

Owners of companies may step in and replace clever strategic proactivity with old-school norms. This may follow from owners not being informed early enough by top management about the Operative System. It may also follow aggressive takeovers, where new owners simply replace previous top management to showcase the new ownership. And/or…

Failure of analyzing “what is what” when bottom lines are disappointing. Are such disappointments perhaps due to previous flaws in business design? Or flaws in societal or political design? Or too rapid progress aligned with the Operative System? The latter may occur due to enthusiasm, even though the Operative System is, by design in the D-step, clear about how to strike the right balance between pace of progress on the one hand and sufficient ROI throughout transitions on the other. Regardless, knee-jerk reactions do not suffice for the kind of delicate analysis of such elements behind disappointing bottom lines. This is particularly the case when markets are changing harshly and fast, regardless of whether there are strategies in place to manage this or not. And/or…

Forgetting ‘back to basics’. Even after having understood the Operative System, and experienced short-term success from using it, the weight of the surrounding obsolete business paradigm can be so strong that it lulls leaders—at all levels—into believing that, once understood and endorsed, the Operative System will remain in place forever. And that sustaining this would be possible even without a habit of continuously questioning whether decisions might miss essential aspects from the basics. Again, rabbit holes are everywhere. It is haste and lack of reflection that create them, so a sense of “back to basics” is strongly called for, the most essential sustainability task of the most essential player, the leader.

Conclusion: It is like competing in chess, playing the piano, or any other complex discipline. You must do it if you want to stay attuned to its basics, allowing the original foundational knowledge to gradually integrate into deep understanding—one that truly sticks. Moving this to groups or communities doing it effectively together, e.g. curing cancer or curing un-sustainability, it is up to insightful leaders to create the necessary cohesion between departments, sectors, disciplines, and regions by keeping “back-to-basics” in mind.