Forced Perspective in Strategy & Facilitation
Facilitating a series of strategy workshops for a client, I realized I had made a mistake. I had set back the organization by nine months of working on innovation initiatives.
At the end of each of those workshops, I asked the group to rate strategic options within an impact-effort-matrix, prioritizing low effort. In all of these workshops, I watched viable solutions disappear from deliberation. Bigger initiatives were considered too complex to pursue.
I needed three cycles for my error to settle in. Prioritizing low effort initiatives had led to a deprioritization of innovation.
I had forced a suboptimal perspective onto the organization.
What is forced perspective?
In Disney World, imagineers created an illusion of height and grandeur from the visitor’s point of view, by building the upper levels of the castle smaller in scale.
Forced perspective has been used centuries ago in architecture. The Parthenon in Athens with refined columns and curves was built 432 BC. The Aula Palatina in Trier with its differently-sized windows build AD 300.
More recently it has been adapted in film-making and photography. One of the most famous examples being Lord of the Rings.
The main idea of forced perspective is to modify the actual proportions of an entitity to create a different experience. Elements appear more evenly sized than they are in reality. Things appearing bigger or smaller than they are.
This guided point of view doesn’t just manipulate physical space. It’s the same mechanism strategists and facilitators deploy when we choose a framework or frame a question.
Changing conversations by constraining a point of view
As soon as we pick a model, a framework or a toolset to work with, we are changing the way we analyze a situation. We are changing the way a group formulates their strategy. Changing the way possible solutions are generated.
Pick Alexander Osterwalder’s Value Proposition Canvas and guide stakeholders to evaluate the alignment between a company’s offerings and customers’ needs.
Choose “Playing to Win“ as your strategy framework of choice and force leadership through a creative and iterative process to strategy-making.
Even when we, as strategists or facilitators, ask any good question, we are forcing a different perspective. “How might we…?” generates more ideas? ”Which of these is quickest to implement?“ narrows down choice.
In the best scenario, we are conscious and transparent about the tools we pick and questions we ask. Without conscious intent and participant awareness, we influence decisions through opaque choices.
We are shaping the way people experience a situation.
Adapting my approach
Coming back to the initial strategy workshops, I realized I had manipulated the group to a less than optimal decision.
In the end, I decided to complement the decision-making process with McKinsey’s Three Horizons of Growth model, to initiate conversations around timelines and the need to innovate.