How to think inside the box
A strategist is someone who puts things in boxes.
When people ask us what we do, the on-brand answer is that we help other people make breakthroughs. This is sometimes met with a blank face (usually with the express inference that we may need to clarify what the hell that means). So we ladder down a little closer to layman’s terms. We say we’re strategic thinkers who help others think strategically.
Which makes us strategists, I guess.
There’s a strange discomfort that comes with being a strategist. On our good days we think we’ve got a knack for seeing things differently or forging a path that nobody else had previously considered. But on our bad days we think we’re making it all up, hacking through complexity without much of a plan and finding direction through sheer flukey fortuitousness.
It’s funny. Even though we’ve been doing this — in some form or other — for over 20 years, we frequently have the feeling we don’t quite know what we’re doing. Because generally, building a strategy is never about knowing what you’re doing, it’s more about guessing, throwing things at the wall, feeling your way forward with scattered thoughts, insights, random models found in the internet’s annals, and something you saw earlier that made you look at things differently.
So, whenever someone asks, “Hey, strategy guy — what’s your strategy methodology or approach”, it genuinely stops me in my tracks.
I don’t know what my methodology is. I don’t have a clue. I usually mumble something about “frameworks” or “Venn diagrams”, then do a runner before anyone susses me out.
Recently I did some work that was strategy work but not my bread and butter. It had me out of my comfort zone and had me questioning my ability as a strategist to conjure some clarity. In the end I got there. And how I got there made me realise that whatever I was doing was (1) A transferable method and (2) An actual method.
I took some time to think about how I’d approached this different challenge, and whether or not I do have an approach at all. It turns out I may have an approach. I’m calling it ‘Thinking Inside The Box’.
I create boxes and put things in boxes. I create boxes within boxes. I sometimes create bigger boxes. Sometimes I have to combine two or more boxes to make a super-box. I think in boxes. Boxes, boxes, boxes.
I am not a strategist. I am a person who puts things in boxes.
Imagine a typical strategy project. There are a smorgasboard of inputs. Usually some client interviews. Typically some existing research/insight reports to trawl through. Maybe some workshops or a few focus groups. Perhaps a survey. As a strategist, the normal response faced with all these inputs and data points is to take a trip to some dark lonely places, feel around hopelessly for a while, stare aimlessly at a computer screen for several hours, and then pray Armageddon saves you from having to ever figure the bleeding thing out.
When Armageddon fails to arrive, there’s only one way to hack through this mess and that’s to put it into boxes. Post-Its make for great boxes so get ready with a handful.
STEP 1.
I look at the dataset and strive to make some kind of observation. Based on gut feel, look for a big breakthrough insight. (In reality, that thing that seems like a big breakthrough insight will later reveal itself to be nothing of the sort.) Take that observation and put it in a box, metaphorically. Write it down as a theme or hypothesis.
This is great. Because once you’ve got one box, you’re on your way. This is progress towards the end.
STEP 2.
I look at the dataset and look for any associated thoughts. It’s good to look for three things: (a) something that supports/deepens the theme (b) something that is related to but clearly adjacent to the theme (c) something that sits above the theme.
Depending on what you find you will need to either (a) put it inside the box and enhance the story of the first box (b) create a new box that sits at the same level hierarchically as the first box (c) create a new box that now subsumes your first box.
STEP 3.
Keep looking for things to bring into play as per the second step. Be happy to be drawn to the box that sits highest up in your hierarchy. The higher up you’re posting your notes, the more likely you are to resolve the primary story to be told. And of course once you arrive there, it’s easier for everything else to find a natural home underneath it. Or maybe it’s all there already. Steps 4, 5, 6 and so on are simply rinse and repeat of Step 3, so I won’t over-elaborate from here.
I see this method as a more hierarchically-driven version of affinity mapping. It’s about finding themes by mapping related data, but it’s dedicated primarily to finding the toppermost point of a strategy. It’s about throwing big hypotheses down and seeing how you can make the picture/box bigger and richer with every new insight.
Thanks for reading.
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