Francis Wade | Tomorrow’s local leaders must think like scientists

Five years from now, the most effective local organisations won’t be the ones with the most detailed plans. They’ll be the ones that treat strategy like a testable hypothesis. To explain why, here’s an example – and some theory – you and your C-suite can use today.

Many leaders make the mistake of equating strategy with comprehensive plans. But the truth is planning is a waste of time if there isn’t a strategic hypothesis at its core. It’s known as a ‘theory of change’ in government circles.

Even though the idea has been around, many don’t use it. Perhaps their detailed plans have not failed dramatically enough. If so, consider this: Dianne McIntosh and the Citizens Security Secretariat, CSS, used this approach to help reduce Jamaica’s violent crime by 40 per cent.

One of the fundamental mistakes in corporate strategy is substituting activity for an actual hypothesis. Too often, strategic planning yields little more than an optimistic wish-list or scattered laundry list. These plans fail to convey the ‘strategic essence’ which is defined as a bet on the way proposed actions will generate desired outcomes over the long term. An educated guess, in other words.

But don’t believe for a moment that AI will soon be able to craft an optimal strategy for you. Why?

The creation of game-changing strategy inherently starts with incomplete information, human unpredictability and an ever-fluctuating outside environment. These factors make long-term thinking daunting and exhausting. Most give up, surrendering to chance and short-term incremental gains. The alternative? Forge a hypothesis, even if it requires years of effort to prove.

Enter CSS and the problem they were given to help reduce Jamaica’s high violent crime.

Pivoting from flawed assumptions

When CSS was formed, its plans followed many previous frameworks in Jamaica. They relied on multi-sectoral responses, justice reform, and community development. Initially, CSS leaned heavily on social intervention, setting an ambitious goal to train approximately 99,000 parents of high-risk youths through the Parenting Commission.

However, this idea proved to be flawed.

A combination of lack of existing capacity and parents’ habitual behaviour turned out to be a barrier. In full retreat, the CSS learned the hard way that the ambitious target was unattainable.

The breakthrough came through an unexpected source.

Tony Anderson, a former commissioner of police, asked the CSS: “When are you going to do something about the few schools which are producing most of our criminals?” This provocation led the CSS team and its multi-sector stakeholder to dive deeply into the educational sector data.

Their findings confirmed Anderson’s claim.

But they revealed far more. In the language of Dr Peter Compo, it pointed them to a strategic bottleneck they could tackle. An aspiration such as crime reduction has only a handful of potential bottlenecks. Finding the right one to ‘exploit’ with timely remedies is all-important.

In this vein, the CSS turned its attention to literacy and childhood trauma, and schools as the structure for interventions. Fortunately, their new hypothetical model has proven to be correct. Here is a way to follow their lead.

Four-step model

Step 1: Concede your plan is only a guess

The CSS’ initial hypothesis – broad parenting outcomes – was quickly revised when data showed it wasn’t working. This required intellectual humility and a culture willing to be wrong initially.

Step 2: Use data to find the real constraint

Analysis of school inspection reports revealed the true drivers: illiteracy and unaddressed trauma. Some children were leaving school reading at a grade two level. The bottleneck wasn’t parents alone. It was also the educational system.

Step 3: Build a long-term cause-and-effect model

The new hypothesis: closing learning gaps and treating trauma in vulnerable schools through the IMSSS or Inter-Ministerial School Support Strategy. Success became measurable: “moving a child from a grade one to a grade four reading level in ten weeks” – predictably changing their life trajectory.

Step 4: Institutionalise through a delivery mechanism

Borrowing from the UK’s Tony Blair government, the CSS and its stakeholders became a coordinating centre managing the “science of delivery” across multiple ministries or agencies.

You may be interested to discover whether your company’s planning documents actually contain a true strategic hypothesis. Apply the following LLM prompt:

1. Identify the document’s main long-term objective (the ‘game-changing outcome’).

2. List the top five proposed actions.

3. Determine the assumed ‘cause-and-effect chain’ that links these actions to the final outcome. State this chain explicitly – example: ‘We believe Action X will lead to Intermediate Result Y, which will solve Constraint Z, resulting in Outcome W’.

4. Identify the implicit ‘strategic hypothesis’ embedded within this chain – example: ‘The ultimate constraint preventing Outcome W is Constraint Z’.

5. Assess whether the proposed actions are primarily ‘business as usual’ activities or true ‘surgical interventions’ designed specifically to test the strategic hypothesis and solve the constraint.

6. Based on the analysis, articulate the document’s central strategic hypothesis in a single, clear, testable sentence. If no clear hypothesis is present, state what the implied hypothesis is and why the plan is likely to be perceived as merely a “wish-list”.

After running the prompt on your strategic documents, ask yourself: If we executed this plan perfectly and still didn’t achieve our long-term goals, would we know why?

If the answer is no, you have a prayer disguised as a plan.

If it is yes – if you could pinpoint which assumption was wrong – you are thinking like a scientist. And you’re finally ready to find your strategic hypothesis.

Francis Wade is a management consultant and author of Perfect Time-Based Productivity. To search past columns on productivity, strategy and business processes, or give feedback, email: columns@fwconsulting.com