How can we co-create a strategy story?

In my previous article, I talked about the fourth process of value creation, “connecting and story making.” This time, I would like to talk about the last process of the value creation process, “Co-creation of strategies.”

The whole value creation process is shown here.

Before the process of strategy emergence, there is a process of decision on strategy, which I will deal with in another article, so I will not go into it here.

Good strategy comes from a good collaborative process

6) Co-creation/Emergence of strategies
Verbalize the decisions made and develop them for the emergence/creation of strategy in the organization.

The processes (1) through (5) that I have described so far are basically carried out by individuals. On the other hand, in the last process, “6) Co-creation of strategies” occurs through collaboration with others, and the strategy is developed into an actual strategy.

Co-creation/emergence here refers to “the phenomenon in which a new order is formed when local interactions among elements affect the whole, and the whole in turn affects the individual elements.”(Digital Daijisen)

Have you ever seen a bunch of birds in the sky flying together as if they were one big creature? Or have you ever seen a school of fish in the ocean swimming in tandem as if they were one big living thing?

This kind of phenomenon is close to the image expressed by the word “Co-creation/emergence.” While (1) through (5) of the value creation process proceed as a creative process within individuals, “Co-creation/emergence of strategies” is the creation of value as a group that cannot be fully expressed by a set of ideas within individuals due to interactions among individuals.

So, how can we have good collaboration that leads to the “Co-creation/emergence of strategies”?

Knowledge Creation with SECI Model

The SECI model (Professor Ikujiro Nonaka) answers this question beautifully: the SECI model is based on the idea of knowledge creation through the mutual conversion of tacit knowledge and explicit knowledge in an organization.

For more information on the SECI model, please refer to The Knowledge Creating Company (by Ikujiro Nonaka and Hirotaka Takeuchi), but here I will only give an overview of the four modes of knowledge transformation.
(The SECI model is a profound theory that cannot be fully explained in this explanation, so I highly recommend that you read the original book if you are interested.)

Four modes of knowledge transformation
Socialization: The process of creating tacit knowledge such as mental models and skills by sharing experiences
Externalization: The process of turning tacit knowledge into clear concepts
Combination: The process of combining concepts to create a single system of knowledge
Internalization: Process of embodying explicit knowledge into tacit knowledge

(Excerpted from The Knowledge Creating Company by Ikujiro Nonaka and Hirotaka Takeuchi)

As you can see, the SECI model is a theory that can be applied not only to the “creation of strategy stories” but also to knowledge creation in general.

Applying this SECI model to the situation of creating a strategy story, we can see the following.

Application of the SECI process in the co-creation/emergence of strategic stories
Socialization: Share intuition about strategy and tacit knowledge acquired from internalization through dialogue.
Externalization: Crystallize ideas by bouncing ideas off each other and mashing up new values that lead to strategy stories.
Combination: Consolidate existing stories and ideas about strategy from peers into a “shared strategy.
Internalization: Acquire new tacit knowledge while practicing shared strategy and prototyping.

Alue interpretation based on The Knowledge Creating Company
(Ikujiro Nonaka and Hirotaka Takeuchi)

In order to create good strategies, we will practice these four knowledge transformations. All four are important, but my personal feeling is that the most important one is socialization.

In socialization, we share through dialogue what we have intuited and experienced, including sensations that have not yet been verbalized. Based on the premise that there is tacit knowledge from intuition and experience, and that not all of it can be verbalized, we value the process of sharing tacit knowledge.

In everyday meetings, verbal communication tends to dominate, and many people may find it difficult to create opportunities for socialization unless they make a conscious effort.

The modern business world is verbal dominant. In order to make decisions as an organization, and to formulate and implement policies as an organization, it is essential to use language for expression and understanding. Of course, there are many advantages to using language for expression and understanding, but there is a risk that by becoming unaware of the structure of verbal dominance, we may discard what cannot be expressed through words.

In socialization, it is important that the intuition, feelings, and sense of discomfort that each person has are valued and carefully shared through a collaborative process, rather than being dismissed and dismissed as meaningless if they are not verbalized or cannot be explained.

Creating fields for running the SECI process

“I understand the importance of running the SECI model in the co-creation of strategy stories, but what exactly do I need to do?”

Some of you may be asking yourself these questions. What I recommend is “ field design”. A field is an environment where multiple people gather. Field design refers to the intentional creation of the purpose and atmosphere of a field.

Creating fields for the SECI process to run is as follows.

Socialization: Dialogue field
This is an opportunity to share intuition, mental models, experiences, and other things that are difficult to verbalize, with a focus on dialogue. Through dialogue, we value each person’s intuition, feelings, and sense of discomfort, and share them carefully. We create a place with an atmosphere of serious chit-chat, with the image of “let’s have a casual conversation” rather than a goal-oriented discussion.

In the Dialogue Field, each person shares his/her feelings related to the main theme, which can be something slightly different from the main theme, something based on personal knowledge and experience, or something that has not been well verbalized. It is important to create a comfortable atmosphere in which each person can share his or her story without being judged as good or bad.

Externalization: Mush-up Field
This is a field of skillful discussion where the seeds of each person’s different thoughts and ideas are combined and integrated into a single concept. Although each person’s thoughts and ideas are different, we will explore new concepts with the belief that there is one “something” that encompasses them all.

In the mashup field, we explore the differences in opinions and thoughts to find out where the differences come from, and then we go through the process of integrating and fusing the ideas into a unified concept.

A dialogue field can be a field where “everyone is different and everyone is good,” while a mashup field aims to be “everyone is the same and everyone is good.”

Combination: Problem-Solving Field
This is a discussion field where we connect new concepts to existing frameworks and ways of thinking in order to realize them, and resolve any issues that may arise. When realizing a concept, there are various issues that arise, such as the constraints of reality and consistency with other frameworks and ways of thinking, and we solve these issues.

In the problem-solving field, we look not only at the ideal, but also at the application to reality, prioritizing if resources are insufficient, or narrowing the scope to increase feasibility if the gap between the ideal and reality is large.

A mash-up field is a field where the energy to pursue ideals is strong, while a problem-solving field is a field where the energy to devise applications to reality is strong.

Internalization: Implementation Field
This is a field where new concepts can be realized and put into practice. Each of us will put into practice the measures to apply the concept to reality that we came up with in the problem-solving field.

In the implementation field, through active practice based on the will of each individual, a wealth of practical knowledge is accumulated within each person. If we practice as if we are being forced to do something, we will not gain much from the experience. If we have the desire to try and practice, we will be able to gain a lot from the experience.

The problem-solving field is like a meeting to discuss how to solve problems, while the implementation field is the time for each person to put the solutions into practice.

In addition, while the implementation field is a time for each individual to practice, the dialogue field is a time to share what one has experienced and noticed by practicing through dialogue.

It is important to go back and forth

So far, I have talked about the SECI model and designing a field to put it into practice, but some of you may have found it a bit difficult.

It is not so much important to understand the details of what I have explained so far, but rather to understand that it is important to move back and forth between individual and team, tacit and explicit knowledge, and ideal and practice.

When co-creating a strategic story, if we spend a lot of time thinking about it individually, we should make time to discuss it with the team; if we are supposed to express it verbally, we should try to value tacit knowledge based on intuition and experience; if we have gone through the process of thinking about the ideal, we should switch to practice with prototypes; and so on.

In this article, I talked about the last process of the value creation process, “Co-creation of Strategies.”

Here are the quests of the day. (If you’d like, please share your thoughts in the comments.)

・What experiences, if any, have you had with teams creating new things that you think successfully implemented the SECI model?

・What kind of field do you think made it possible for you to successfully implement the SECI model in the above experience? (Dialogue field, Mush-up field, Problem-solving field, Implementation field)

Bunshiro Ochiai