The Emperor Has No Clothes: Acting Strategically While Recovering from Process Trauma

A huge part of my job over the years has been helping groups recover from Process Trauma (and its ugly cousin Consultant Trauma). It’s caused when a group goes through some kind of process, such as strategic planning, and has a horrible experience. It almost always results in the group deciding never to pursue that process again unless they’re forced to, which exacerbates the trauma.

As empathetic as I am to Process Trauma, I am troubled that groups tend to give up on process rather than making adjustments and trying again. If I have a bad experience with a personal fitness trainer, I’m not going to give up on exercise as a path to getting healthier. Why do we do this with our work?

I think it’s because people often don’t understand why they’re going through a process in the first place. Instead of pressing for clarity, most folks accept it without questioning it. It’s the organizational version of the Emperor’s New Clothes. People assume that others must know better, or they’re intimidated by the terminology, and they give in.

Strategy work is rife with Process Trauma. However, strategy work matters because acting strategically matters. It’s the difference between systematically working toward your higher purpose and flailing in the weeds, trying to put out fires wherever you see them. It’s the difference between flowing in alignment with others and moving at cross-purposes. It’s the difference between success and failure.

I recently put together a short video where I explain what strategy is, how to develop good strategy, and how to build strong strategic muscles:

I hope this video helps people recover from Process Trauma while also clarifying why and how to do this work. I want to empower folks to speak up when the Emperor has no clothes. I want people to understand that skilled practitioners aren’t good at coming up with answers, but at helping the group ask and explore the right questions. I want people to understand that all good strategy is collective and emergent.

I also hope this video helps folks understand why tools like the Strategy / Culture Bicycle are designed the way they are and imagine alternative ways of using them. There’s no one right way to develop good strategy. It’s critical that groups approach it as something they need to figure out for themselves, which takes time and practice.

I would love to start a larger conversation about how to align around good strategy. Many strategy consultants are not intentional about helping groups align, which is why their processes often fail. However, collaboration practitioners who are intentional about alignment often stop there rather than making sure that what they align around is good. I touch on some of this in the video, but the devil is always in the details.

What strikes me about Hans Christian Andersen’s version of “The Emperor’s New Clothes” is that the emperor keeps walking, naked as the day he was born, head held high, even after the crowd starts hooting at him. Strategy is hard. If you’re not struggling at it, you’re probably not doing it right. But stubbornly marching ahead, ignoring the people around you, guarantees Process Trauma and failure. Good things happen when people know the purpose of a process, make adjustments when they struggle, and practice, practice, practice.

Thanks to H. Jessica Kim for reviewing an early draft of this post. Photo by Png Nexus, CC BY NC-ND 2.0.

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Loving vs Hating Process

Morning Yoga in the Bandstand

When you fall in love with the process, and you do it the right way, you have a winning mindset, and the culture is set to make that push and build a winning team.
—Tyson Chandler, NBA basketball player

A colleague was telling me about a challenging client project the other day, which included her client flat-out saying to her, “I don’t like process. I just want to get stuff done.”

I hear this all the time. It may surprise many that I actually feel the same way. I’d love to be in better shape, but I hate running, so I’m not. I’d love to play an instrument, but I hate practicing, so I can’t.

Which is exactly the point. Regardless of whether you love or hate process, you can’t get stuff done or be a high-performer without it. The harder the work you’re trying to do, the more this holds true.

I can empathize with people’s dislike of process as long as they can also acknowledge its necessity. The problem is that many do not acknowledge this. I often see people resist doing things that feel “process-y,” such as taking the time to build relationships, developing shared language, or getting aligned around strategy and culture, because they claim it detracts from the “actual” work.

I find this weird and troubling. In music or in sports, you don’t ever hear professionals object to practice because it’s too process-y or because it detracts from the real work. Everyone in these fields knows that process is the real work. I was reminded of this while watching Episode 3 of The Players’ Tribune‘s excellent video series, Rookie/Vet. (Tyson Chandler’s quote from above starts at the three-minute mark.)

I want to shift our mindsets in our field around process and practice. I want people to see collaboration as a craft and to understand that improvement requires practice. There are no shortcuts or magical substitutes. Moreover, the things we’re trying to accomplish via collaboration also require process and practice. It behooves us to acknowledge this and to learn how to get good at it if we truly want to “get things done.”

On the flip-side, those of us in the business of designing and facilitating process have to hold ourselves accountable for why people might have a negative attitude toward process in the first place. One reason is that their experiences with it are poor. If we believe that good process will lead to good results, then we need to do that and hold ourselves accountable to the results.

Fields that embrace a process mindset, such as sports and music, already do that. Tyson Chandler has the credibility to tell his younger colleagues to trust the process, because he’s been a good teammate his whole career and has won a championship. If we want to convince others to trust our process, we have to design with intention and integrity. The more we practice doing this, the more that results will follow.