Strategy's butterfly effect
The butterfly effect is a well-known concept in weather science, but is also applicable to many other areas of life...including strategy.
There is a phenomenon that I've experienced on numerous occasions that never fails to impress me.
Some call it the butterfly effect.
You've heard of this before, I'm sure: 'a butterfly's wing flap in Australia can cause a hurricane in Brazil'...or something to that effect.
The butterfly effect is actually a reference to work done in the 1960s by a meteorologist, Edward Lorenz - who was able to show that output from a system can be highly sensitive to very small changes in the conditions that influence it.
Lorenz modelled this phenomenon mathematically and the resulting graph that depicts the changing system over time, looks a bit like butterfly wings.
The butterfly effect is a well-known concept in weather science, but is also applicable to many other areas of life...including strategy.
The process of strategy design is a collaborative, co-creating one in which assumptions are explored and tested. Assumptions that form a significant part of the predominate thinking that is the operational foundation of a business.
When those thinking patterns are challenged and reconfigured in other ways so as to re-enable the organisation onto an alternative path of progress, the resulting output from small changes to language or metaphor can be radical.
Just the shaping of a sentence which is used as a decision-making lens within the organisation, can have profound implications for what the impact the organisation then goes on to produce.
Strategy's butterfly effect is powerful, which is also why words and sentences should be taken seriously and carefully considered for their long-term effects.
Using the butterfly effect in the design of your strategy is wise, but comes with a warning; the effects of what gets produced as a result are never certain, so proceed with care and awareness.