Orient: Sense-Making, Strategy and Direction

All courses / AI Leader / Module 2 / Chapter 5

Learning objectives

After the lesson the participant can:

• Describe the three parts of orientation and the four things about it that do not change when AI is introduced.
• Review a strategy or direction statement with Rumelt's three questions and the test of the conflicting demands.
• Explain why a leader needs a source that does not pass through the usual channel.
• Draft a direction record with a given-up list, dated evidence, named dissent and a review condition.

Key concepts

Sense-making

In Weick's account an ongoing activity in which people notice cues, place them in a frame and act on the account. It is retrospective, social and driven by plausibility rather than accuracy, so a leader needs an account good enough to act on and sources that reveal when it is wrong.

The kernel of a strategy

Rumelt's three parts of a good strategy: a diagnosis that names the challenge, a guiding policy that sets the approach and coherent actions that carry it out. The chapter uses them as questions, including what will not be done.

A priority with a cost

A priority is useful when it names a thing that will receive less, a review date and an owner of the trade-off. The practical test is whether a unit manager facing two legitimate demands can tell from the direction which one yields.

Information diet

The sources from which the leader's account is made. Mintzberg's five chief executives relied mostly on meetings and calls and preferred soft, current information, so before AI the diet was already largely oral, social and mediated by a few people.

Direction record

A leadership decision record in the LDR family, under version control, stating the situation and its uncertainties, the choice with what is given up, the owner and deciding organ, the evidence with its age, the dissent with the name of who raised it, and a review with a condition written in advance.

Interactive exercises

Do them here and get feedback at once. Choose a card and then where it belongs, or drag it.

Teaching plan

Discussion

1. The chapter says a direction that gives up nothing has not chosen. Which current priority in your organisation has no stated cost, and who would have to pay it if it were stated?
2. Direction is measured at the receiving end. What would you learn if you asked people two layers down what they believe the direction to be and what they would stop doing because of it?
3. Nordvik's 2024 reorganisation was a direction to be flatter and faster that was never evaluated. What review condition, written in advance, would have caught the trend in spans?

Written exercise

Self-test

Choose an answer to see whether it is right, or open the answer below each question.

1. According to the chapter, what is the practical test of whether a direction has actually chosen?

   1. Whether a unit manager facing two legitimate demands can tell from it which one yields
   2. Whether every proposal in the organisation can be presented as serving it, as with a vision of trust
   3. Whether it has been announced to all staff at least once by the leader
   4. Whether it lists at least five priorities with an owner for each
   Show the answer

   A. Whether a unit manager facing two legitimate demands can tell from it which one yields
   A vision that every proposal can claim to serve settles nothing. A direction has chosen when a manager caught between two legitimate demands can read from it which one gives way.

2. Why does the direction record LDR-NR-2029-0004 carry the evidence age of the 61 per cent adoption figure?

   1. Because the figure was produced by the staff assistant, and every assistant output must be labelled as such
   2. Because the council is required by statute to see the age of every figure
   3. Because the figure was last checked nine months before filing, and the leaders ought to see that
   4. Because figures older than six months are automatically deleted from the record
   Show the answer

   C. Because the figure was last checked nine months before filing, and the leaders ought to see that
   The figure was last checked against the logs in February 2029 and the record was filed in November 2029. Showing the age keeps a stale claim from being read as current evidence.

3. What does the chapter identify as the common failure in Hansa Mutual's adoption target and its Lean Claims programme?

   1. Both were decided by the supervisory board without the executive board
   2. Both relied on a briefing assistant that hid the dissent of the works council
   3. Both lacked a strategy document with a diagnosis and a guiding policy
   4. Both were chosen and communicated but not tested for understanding, and the review had no condition
   Show the answer

   D. Both were chosen and communicated but not tested for understanding, and the review had no condition
   The weakness in both organisations was not a missing strategy but a direction that could not be reviewed: no stated purpose beside the measure, no test of understanding and no condition for changing course.