I passionately believe that strategic

communication is critical to
success in business and in life but
we must also think about strategy
and how we communicate that
many of us focus on our day-to-
day work on just the tasks we need
to complete in executing them well
taking time to reflect on strategy in
our organizations and our own life
can help us be successful I'm Matt
Abrahams and I teach strategic
communication at Stanford
Graduate School of Business
welcome think fast talk smart the
podcast I am very excited to speak
with Jesper Sorensen Jesper is a
professor of organizational
behavior at the GSB along with
being the senior associate dean of
academic Affairs Jesper specializes
in dynamics of organizational and
 strategic change he teaches
strategic leadership crafting and
leading strategy and along with
fellow Professor Glenn Carroll
Jesper wrote making great strategy
arguing for organization advantage
welcome Jesper thanks for being
here I'm super excited for our
conversation thanks for having me
Matt it's really an honor to be on
your podcast well thank you let's
go ahead and get started uh you've
been studying and teaching
strategy for over 25 years can you
share with us how you define
strategy and explain how it's
different from planning sure so you
know I think um you know the
tagline here the GSB change lives
change organizations change the
world what I always like to tell
students is if you want to change
 the world you have to build great
organizations because large-scale
change always happens through
organizations and if you're going to
build a great organization you have
to have the resources to sustain that
organization and strategy is really
about explaining how you secure
that organization's economic
prosperity and if you're a public
company that means how do you
maximize profits perhaps but even
if you're a non-profit you have to
have a strategy that is somehow the
logic by which you get enough
resources to be able to to survive
and do what it is you want to do
now that's different from planning
like I think planning is really about
the order of operations right it's the
sequence of things that you're
going to do uh once you know why
 it is that you have a reason to do
something and what the outcome is
going to be and so I think strategy
is that sense much more
complicated because in order to get
the resources that you need you
have to engage with other actors so
you have to engage with your
customers and your suppliers and
so on and so forth and you don't
have control over them planning is
about the things that you can
control okay but strategy is really
much more complicated in that
sense so it sounds like planning is
is much more tactical once you
have the strategy you then invoke
the plans to enact that strategy
exactly you shared that one of the
Prime directives for leaders is to
focus on building a strategy what
are some of the mistakes or
misconceptions you found over the
years that leaders have about
strategy or its role in their
organization so I think the the
biggest misconception that a lot of
managers and organizations have
and and leaders is that strategy is
not their job so I think in a lot of
organizations we have this image
of strategy being dictated at the top
that the CEO is going to articulate
here's what the strategy is and you
know it's like a football coach
sending the play in from the
sideline and then we're all just
going to go and execute them right
and so you'll meet tons of
managers who'll say I don't do
strategy I'm just about execution
but of course strategy is really
about how you're going to best
allocate your time and your
 resources that's ultimately what it's
about and so if you have any
responsibility in organization
you're doing strategy and so you
need to be able to engage with the
strategy and I think one of the
things that happens is that we
disempower ourselves if we think
about strategy as that the related
misconception is then that people
think of strategy as kind of like a
set it once a year or once every five
years kind of thing and then we're
just going to go execute on that
plan but you know if you think that
strategy is set you know no no
battle plan survives contact with
the Enemy right and so like as soon
as you start to do things things start
to change and so it's not just about
drafting this beautiful architectural
blueprint and then handing off for
 somebody to go build it because
you got to adapt to the changing
landscape so I'm hearing you say
that strategy is something that
everybody owns within an
organization it's not just comes
down from on high and that it has
to adapt and change I have been
part of several organizations where
when people say we're going to
strategically plan everybody's eyes
roll and they think oh we're just
going to put another document on
the shelf or it's just going to sit on
some website somewhere and what
I'm hearing you say is that it's it's
living and you have to evolve it
and everybody's involved in it
which leads me to the next
question which is in your book and
teaching you and Glenn Carroll
make a very convincing claim that
 organizations should craft strategy
arguments can you share what you
mean by a strategy argument uh
what are they and how can they
help What Glenn and I are trying to
do in that book is basically you
know help people think about
strategy not as just a set of
analytical Frameworks which is
what we teach many times in
Business Schools you think about
the classic way of teaching strategy
in a business school is Porter five
forces or or or differentiation
versus low costs and those are all
really important but when you're
doing strategy on a day-to-day
basis you have to understand like
how is this working so it's an
explanation and that's how I do
think it's related to communication
it's an explanation for how you
 think you're going to succeed and
that's an argument and an argument
is simply a set of assumptions that
lead to a conclusion right that force
a conclusion and so what a strategy
argument is it's a statement about
what are the Investments and the
activities that we are going to
undertake that's going to lead us to
be able to create and capture
economic value and if we can do
those things right if we can
understand the connection between
those Investments and those
activities and how we create
economic value and how we
capture economic value then we
can start to have sophisticated
conversations about like what is it
that's working what is it that's not
working and it gives us a model
through which we can see the
 world the thing I feel is so
powerful about this notion of
strategy as an argument is one it
involves how you think about it
because when we craft arguments
we think about things like who are
we speaking to what's the context
and it implies that this is a
conversation that has to be had
again it's not some dictation that
comes down from from somebody
so I find that really powerful and it
also implies in an argument that
there is debate and discussion and
change and evolution and I think
that's really really important and it
fits very nicely with what as you
know I teach strategic
communication and while I talk a
lot about the importance of
communicating strategically I'm
really curious to have you share
 your thoughts on how
communication is important in
strategy so I think there's two
different parts to that and one just
to key off of of what you just said
like I do think and then in the book
Glenn and I we we devote an entire
chapter to basically thinking about
how can you argue constructively
as a group in an organization
oftentimes what we say when we
teach you know if we teach MBA
students or Executives we say you
know you should go and you
should argue more in your
organizations and a lot of people
are then like well whoa no wait I
don't want to do that because what
they're hearing is fight like and
we're not saying you should go
fight more because so a fight is
kind of like you know you're
 throwing assertions at each other
and you're just waiting for
somebody to give in so it's like a
street fight but there are ways to
structure debates and arguments so
that they are constructive or and
part of that is about having the
ability to listen to somebody else
and hear what it is that they're
trying to say and and hear what
their logic is I think most people
um believe things for a reason like
they have a reason for believing it
you might disagree both with their
conclusion and with some of their
reasons but you can't engage
constructively in a debate unless
you hear them on that Dimension
and so really it's about how do you
structure engagements with each
other to create that space I think
the other part of communicating
strategically that's really important
is is when we think about
delegation so what we know is that
if you want to build a great
organization you're not going to be
able to do that yourself you can't
make all of the decisions much as
you might want to and so we all
know that we have to be able to
delegate we have to be able to
empower people and we have lots
of books that tell us delegation is
wonderful and even the word
empowerment sounds so wonderful
but of course the truth is most
leaders wake up at three in the
morning petrified because they
delegated a task to somebody else
and what do they petrified what are
they scared about they're scared
that they're subordinate is going to
make the wrong decision and at
 three in the morning what is the
wrong decision it's not the decision
I would have made so there's this
tension like on the one hand you
don't want to make all the
decisions and yet you want to
make all the decisions and so um
or at least you want somebody who
might be closer to the information
to make a better decision because
they have more information but
you want them to think about it the
way you think about it and then the
question is how do you get people
to think about things the way you
think about things that's through
communication so that's about
really explaining why you think we
win why you think we are a
successful organization why you
think these sets of actions are the
things that we need to do in order
 to accomplish our goals and so
that's where I do think really clear
communication is going to be
essential to effective strategic
leadership the fact that you are
invoking the power of listening and
being willing to engage in Conflict
but productive conflict so we can
get to a collaborative place with
our strategy is a very different way
of thinking about strategy in
general and I think that's really
powerful for all of us to think
about and clearly being able to
articulate your strategy packaging
it and communicating it in a way
that not only motivates people but
also helps make better decisions is
absolutely critical right I mean
there's this element of strategy that
we have a I think most of our
stereotype of what strategy is is
very top down yes and so then you
just you would think broad you
know communication just
broadcasting but of course we also
know that lots of great strategies
are discovered and they're
discovered because the leaders
were able to listen to their
Frontline workers or their front line
managers tell them here's
something that's even better than
what we're doing now and so of
course strategy is really both it is
both top down and bottom up and
so you have to be able to to both be
able to articulate what it is that you
want to say and where you think
we should be going but then also
be able to listen and hear where
you might be wrong because I
think the other part that we really
emphasize is in an argument well
how do you make an argument you
make assumptions yeah and
assumptions are testable like
they're going to be proven wrong
or they're going to be proven right
and like you have to be open to the
possibility that the Assumption you
made yesterday has turned out to
be wrong today and that you
therefore need to revise your
theory that doesn't mean you have
to go back and give up but it means
that you have to update your your
understanding of the world we've
talked a lot about testing
assumptions and how to really
challenge yourself to be open to
what the the reality is instead of
staying fixed on what you thought
it was and thank you for re-
emphasizing that I have to tell you
when I was doing research for our
 conversation I had a big smile on
my face when when I saw that in
your class and in your thinking
about strategic communication and
communicating about strategy you
talk a lot about how important
storytelling is and I'm curious if
you can help us understand what
makes a good story about strategy
so if you think about strategy as an
argument then uh I think a natural
Criterion suggests itself and that
Criterion is logic so a good
strategy story on the one hand has
a clear narrative to it and you can
follow the steps and so on and so
forth but it should also be
internally coherent and that is the
realm of of logic like in
philosophers and logicians have
spent centuries thinking about how
do we assess arguments in terms of
 whether or not like whatever
assumptions you're making do the
assumptions that you do make lead
to the conclusion that you think it
does and that is I think incredibly
important in assessing strategy
stories and where it's particularly
important is when you're doing
strategy for the future like when
you're trying to say here's where
we want to be in five years here's
my narrative well but think about it
you're telling a story about
something that hasn't happened yet
and so how do you know whether
that's a good story like you can say
Well it resonates with me it
inspires me and those are important
and useful criteria but of course
they could also be foolishness so
you want to also be able to say
okay I don't know whether all these
 assumptions are going to be true
and I can't know until I act but at
least I want to know whether if
they are true will they lead to the
outcome that I think they will lead
to and that's where we you know in
the book Glenn and I get into this a
somewhat technical set of chapters
on thinking about what is logical
validity and and soundness and so
on and so forth which I think a lot
of people are like doing strategy
are like where did that come from
and I stopped thinking about that in
eighth grade or something like that
but I do think that that holding on
to those ideas is like where the way
we should assess each other's
arguments in the first instance is by
the extent to which they're
internally coherent right and and
one of the things I I strongly
 advocated whenever you're
creating content stories Etc that
there is a logical coherence things
follow and that their premises that
you could support I'm curious to
get another dimension of story that
I I wonder your thoughts on which
is once you have a strategy you
have to propagate it in an
organization and and sometimes I
think the most effective way to do
that is not putting it on posters or
little note cards people have it's the
stories that leaders tell do you have
experience on that or thoughts on
how once we have the strategy
how do we actually communicate it
and use story to actually motivate
people to align to that strategy I I
think first of all I totally agree with
the premise of your question like I
do think that communication of
these stories is really important and
I would add like uh Relentless
communication I think one aspect
of that is like it's very easy to
approach management and
leadership as a exercise in giving
orders and I think that's fine like I
think there is an element to it that's
about again delegation and giving
orders but but but maybe give
people a little bit of Grace in the
sense of saying here's why like
here's what I'm thinking and just let
people into your mind and your
logic because then they're going to
do a better job but I just think that's
the most important thing and so I
think the more you can just be
aware of the need to always be
communicating what your
reasoning is and what your logic is
the better off you'll be I absolutely
 agree and I and if people can
internalize your logic they can then
be able to not only know what they
need to do and feel confident that
it's the right thing they can then
communicate it to others so it
becomes a way of propagating that
information and they can more
productively disagree with you
that's true oh but wait a second you
thought that this was going to be
true and it's not so now boss we got
to do something differently it's not
disrespectful or anything like that
just like the world wasn't the way
you thought it was and I can help
you do a better job right and it
allows for that immediate feedback
so you can make those adjustments
for sure before we end I'd like to
ask you the same three questions I
ask everyone you okay with that
 yep all right here we go if you
were to capture the best
communication advice you've ever
received as a five to seven word
presentation slide title what would
that be the five to seven words
would be a classroom is a theater
oh so I had the pleasure of of
working a number of times actually
with a teaching coach named
Barbara Lane Brown and she was a
former actor and uh theater director
and and she really helped me think
about how you know when you're
teaching a class which is obviously
a very strong form of
communication like you're putting
on a play and you have to think
about all the different like think
about it the same way so like you
know when you're first starting out
for example you kind of tend to
 just kind of like okay let me just
start talking like as opposed to
taking command of the room like a
play doesn't start by somebody just
wandering out on stage and
deciding to start well a good play
doesn't a good play doesn't and a
good theater performance has
characters and their different
characters and so thinking about
yourself as an individual and like
the different characters that you
might deploy in the same class and
thinking about engagement with
the audience and how you move
and all those other kinds of things
it was really powerful for me it
changed the way I taught and
definitely for the better I have to
say that I'm pleasantly surprised
and and a bit shocked I I see you as
somebody who is I mean you're a
 fantastic teacher and you're very
logical and methodical and I love
that I now see behind the curtain
literally and figuratively that you
you think about it as a play and I
think all of us should think about
the theater of our communication
now I don't mean we have to be
actors but think about the way the
environment's set up how are you
starting as you mentioned how do
you end how do you build
excitement and all of those are
things that we can learn from
acting and and thank you that that
that's fantastic who is a
communicator that you admire and
why so having listened to your
podcast I of course knew you're
going to ask this question you can
I'm in general terrible at asking at
answering questions like who's
 your favorite ex I'm sorry so I was
stopped no no that's fine so I I
texted my kids my kids are all
grown and I said you know how
how should I answer this question
and one of my sons said Bill
Belichick because I'm a big New
England Patriots fan and my other
son said the Swedish Chef because
they picked him up it's and then
my daughter said Emmett who is
our dog one of our dogs and I
thought about because what
Emmett the dog does he has this
amazing ability to get me up with
non-verbal communication at 5 30
in the morning like it's just stability
so I actually thought well what
what unifies all those because you
know think about Bill Belichick no
most people would not think of
him as a right indicator because he
 very intentionally actually I think
is not communicating doesn't want
to say anything and so so I actually
thought well while I was trying to
make sense of that and like why
would they all say that as a
response to what they thought I
would be and I think it actually has
something to do with non-verbal
communication and and so then I
thought about some more and I
actually think you know I like one
of the musicians that I really have
always enjoyed and loved is a jazz
pianist named Keith Jarrett who
has this amazing style of
performance and you know again
entirely non-verbal but if you think
about the way great musicians use
pacing and Rhythm and kind of the
ability to create drama without ever
saying anything because I think
what I find hard about this question
it's a great question but I find hard
about it is it's so hard to separate
the message from the
communication style so that's
where I think the the music helps
me think about okay like I don't
really know what the message is
but I know how it moves me in
different kinds of ways well first I
am glad that I had an opportunity
to bring your family together I was
very curious how you were going
to have a football coach a muppet
and a pet lead to something but
you're right nonverbal
communication is critical and you
are one of the very few people to
answer this question focused on
non-verbals most people speak
about people who communicate
and speak in a certain way question
 number three what are the first
three ingredients that go into a
successful communication recipe
my first ingredient is not going to
surprise given what we have just
been talking about but I think the
first ingredient is clarify your logic
so be really clear about what your
argument is and that's saying that
you know clear thinking is what
leads to clear writing or clear
speaking is is really key and when
I'm oftentimes giving feedback on
papers to students or or whatever
like it's usually about like the
writing is a mess until they get to
the point where they're actually
clear about what they're trying to
say which is oftentimes hard so
that's not a criticism but it's just
like that right that's the process and
you know related to that is writing
 is rewriting like you have to keep
doing it what you're doing is you're
revising your argument as you go
along second ingredient uh I think
is you know imagine what the
audience might hear not just what
you say like I think we focus very
much on like getting the words
right but not enough on what
people what the audience's
perspective is going to be and how
they're going to interpret the words
and I think one of the ways that I
got better as a you know a case
class teacher was to be able to
anticipate better how students were
going to interpret a question like
all the different ways they could
interpret it and that I think is really
key and then I think the last
ingredient I would say is be all
parts of yourself which goes back
to the this idea of the classroom as
a theater and like you actually have
within you many different
characters that you deploy at
different times the stern person and
the joking person and the and that
you shouldn't be afraid of using all
all of them at the appropriate
moments in any given
communication task I really like
that notion of bringing your whole
self and giving yourself permission
to be who you are when you
communicate that's very powerful I
feel a lot of us put on this
communication person instead of
who we are and that notion of
really thinking about the impact of
your words on your audience and
planning for some of that in
advance I I think speaks very
nicely to your strategic thinking
 and clearly logic is critical we've
all heard people who just ramble
and we wonder why and what
makes sense well yes sir thank you
so much for joining us you made
quite a convincing strategic
argument for the value of strategy
and further you helped us
understand what makes for good
strategy and good communication
as well thank you thank you for
having me thank you.

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