On a trip back to Nigeria in 2014 from a health care management workshop in Dubai, UAE, I was able to read the greater part of the book, Entrepreneurial Spirits by Dr Poly I. Emenike, the founder and Chairman of Neros Pharmaceuticals. My understanding of strategic stretch got practical.
The book tells a simple story of the audacity, courage and faith of a young man who demanded something a whole lot better than what life had offered him. I mentioned that I was returning from the United Arab Emirates – another story of audacity.
Back then, in 2014, both stories – of Dr. Emenike and the great efforts by the leaders of Dubai set me thinking on this concept of stretch in achieving management objectives.
The UAE has successfully executed a miracle to say the least. The city of Dubai is simply beyond belief, considering the territory – an Arab nation in the desert. Dubai has successfully transformed itself into a leading global city. In a 2014 article by Forbes magazine, the city was ranked 7th among the world’s “necessary cities”. The report listed the most influential cities, with London and New York coming first and second respectively.
The men that conceptualised the city of Dubai and, indeed, the master plan of the UAE were simply too audacious. Today, tourists from Nigeria account for a major percentage of the shopping activities in the many malls of Dubai.
Although Dubai’s economy was historically built on the oil industry, the emirate’s western-style model of business drives its economy, with the main revenues now coming from tourism, aviation, real estate, and financial services. Only 7 per cent of its revenue comes from oil. A whopping 86 per cent of its residents are foreigners and the city boasts of the largest international airport in the world.
The concept of strategy as stretch
In a 2003 article in the Harvard Business Review (HBR), Gary Hamel and C.K. Prahalad introduced the Strategic Discipline of Stretch. Strategic stretch, simply stated, is the incongruence between organisational resources and organisational aspirations.
Strategic stretch occurs when the “little Davids of the society decide to take on mighty Goliaths.” It happens when we overlook our limitations and take on seemingly impossible tasks as Dr Poly Emenike and Dubai have done respectively. The result is that we begin to see things which we would not have seen.
In his book, The Business Angel as a Missionary, Prof Pat Utomi shared some of his many exploits as a teacher, businessman and politician – the audacity of his hopes and the enormity of his aspirations amidst the limitation of resources.
Though he is not the founder of the Lagos Business School, he has contributed a lot to its development. Today, Pan Africa University (formerly Lagos Business School) is West Africa’s leading business school and has produced several leading business executives in Nigeria. What’s more, unknown to many, the university was born out of the aspirations of a group within the Catholic Church – just one very aspiring group!
The deduction from the HBR article is that the reason a “David” would always take out a “Goliath” is that, most times, the Goliath no longer has stretch. The “Goliaths” have succeeded and are now operating within the realms of their capacities. Unwittingly, they have placed a cap on the options they could consider, become less daring and innovative. This is almost a natural phenomenon – a full stomach and pride could stifle desire; and some things can only come from persistent desire.
The nature of our desires
The above suggests to me that when money, rather than the achievement of some definite objectives, becomes the sole object of our desires, we could also come to the position where we lose our strategic stretch.
In Nigeria, it is fairly easy to get satisfied once you are doing better than your colleagues. Hence, for strategic stretch to be sustained, it must be built on something other than just money, something more immaterial – though money is still a good source of stretch.
The lack of locally developed innovative products in Nigeria is not because we lack good heads, the problem is that it would take a lot of stretch to happen and most times, the enablers – those with the required money, knowledge and political capacity – just do not have the energy for that kind of stretch.
Strategic stretch and leverage
To illustrate the point of strategic stretch, consider a nascent pharmaceutical firm X, with very lean resources but with the dream of becoming Africa’s leading product development and manufacturing firm.
Assume that this firm believes in the possibility of this aspiration and is really working towards achieving same, the following would be clear on observing the activities of the management at X, compared to that of another firm Y (the current largest firm in the industry).
- Though the aspirations of firm X is just about the same as that of firm Y, the stretch on the management of X would be greater than that on Y.
- What Y would take as a given, X would consider more carefully. X would be humble and hungry – learns more, networks more, and is more willing to borrow others’ ideas and capacities.
- X would find the best option (in terms of efficiency and effectiveness) if it exists simply because it has no other choice.
- X could persevere in a given direction that has long-term benefits but short-term appeal to gain market position, seeing that it would be naïve to take on Y in areas where Y is strongest.
- Y could find it difficult to change fast as it could have other vested interests that would favour the status quo.
- X would be more focused in the application of its energy and resources.
- X would be more daring and quicker in evaluating new knowledge and possibilities.
- For its team, X would look for believers and not just employees. It would employ other compensation packages to retain good talents.
- X could actually fail – but it is below already!
- X would complement and balance its resources more. In X, you won’t find the sales department quarrelling with productions, for example. The firm is too small and fraternal to have such squabbles. They are more like a team – united by one purpose. Company Y could have specialists in every field but X would have more of generalists – people who think in systems.
- Essentially, at X, leveraging is a lifestyle, that is, making the most of the available resources – of materials, money and men.
To be continued … Watch out for the concluding part of this article.
