Strategic Conversation Efforts to understand and improve organisation performance seems to follow one o f three broad approaches: inwards

at the people AT work, quality of processes, an d outwards towards the strategic nature of the organisation s efforts. One pathway looks at the people who are responsible for getting things done, and so we have courses on interpersonal skills, leadership, coaching, learning, str ess management and others. Another path places the focus on 'quality', be it of processes or outputs, and h as a strong bias looking inward. The third path has a focus outwards and increasingly examines topics with 'strat egic' as an actual or implied prefix (e.g. planning, intent, thinking, managemen t, capabilities alignment, and adaptability.) Because all three approaches make sense, attempts to integrate them can be found in publications on strategic planning, project planning and allied topics. It is being better understood that skills in managing people play an important part in strategic delivery of quality products and services. Integration is seen mor e frequently in packaged proprietary frameworks such as balanced scorecard and v arious quality award programs. The three pathways all have in common - "organisational communication processes" . In particular, there is increasing interest in the quality and distribution o f strategic dialogue (aka strategic conversation), and its potential contributio n to organisational change and performance The attraction of strategic conversation seems to be its logical good sense as e videnced by the supportive stories and case examples. Strategic conversation se emed to have currency even before it had been tested and found valid (see the re search information). Even without empirical support it was appealing enough tha t practitioners and managers designed programs to train organisational members, even promoting it to the status of a core competency. So what is it? To understand Strategic Conversation, you need to review the meanings of the com ponent words - and then combine them. What is 'conversation Literature was searched on the words dialog, debate, discuss, discourse, and con versation. Rather than reviewing the entire debate, I will only mention here the apparent favoured use of each of these words and how they differ from each othe r. Why bother? Only to argue the case for strategic conversation rather than s trategic dialogue or discourse etc. According to Peter Senge and colleagues, dialogue is a form of conversation to s urface the 'tacit' infrastructure of thought. In dialogue there is an action foc us where we suspend assumptions and enter into 'think together'. In dialogue we don't think about what we're doing, we do something about what we're thinking. D ialogue is about deeper understanding, not decisions, and is used to understand rather than advocate for agreement. Thus, dialogue has a narrow meaning. The v alue of dialog is that it goes beyond ones understanding, and supports the proce sses of creating, sharing, integrating, and evaluating knowledge. Dialog is inte nded to be open and power-neutral communication, but it can be abused. Such abu se can be discouraged by having 'dialogue quality systems' such as TQA, BSC etc where dialogue topic and outcome focus is confined to strategic matters. Debate differs from dialogue in that it is a dialectic process between two or mo re interlocutors, during which both parties pose questions and receive answers, the aim of which is to increase either party's awareness or understanding. It is

about being cooperative and goal-directed, with reciprocal exchanges of message s embedded in each specific normative context. Because decision processes are n ot an inherent part of debate, debate is too narrow an concept for the all-encom passing exchanges within organisations. In discussion, ideas go back and forth in a winner-takes-all manner. There are d angers however of discussions veering from strategic towards operational, and of risk paralysis in conditions of uncertainty. To reduce those problems, authors suggest using conversational frameworks that encourage a strategic purpose and s ystematise organisational knowledge, culminating in the use of decision models. Discussion is a much broader concept than dialogue or debate, but still doesn t g o into and beyond the actual decision making to embrace subsequent actions Conversation is a term that includes all the above, plus discourse and others. Conversation embrace every form of informational seeking, exchange, and processi ng (e.g. decisions, planning, implementing etc.) What is 'strategic Strategy concerns the organisation's views inwards and outwards. Inwards, the pu rpose of strategy is to align minds and effort, and integrate the daily work of all employees around a common, focused direction. Outwards, strategy involves id entifying and defining strategies from the competitive intelligence collected fr om market and environmental data, and from organisational memory. Until recentl y the definitions of strategy were very 'ends' focused and did not recognise the human components, a focus now challenged. The following definition is my adapta tion of current thinking:A strategy is a fundamental pattern of present and planned objectives that place the organisation in an advantageous (market or other) position, reducing negati ve impact from competitors or other threats including environmental factors [the ends]. The planned objectives take into account present, outsourced and needed organisational capabilities, and interactions that focus on discovery, developme nt alignment and delivery of capabilities [the means]. Therefore - 'strategic conversation' is: Hamel & Prahalad, when introducing the term 'strategic intent', described it as including strategic conversation, and that strategic conversation is about the d esired ends and not the means. Others argue that it is about the means and not the ends, while yet others regard strategic conversation as the continuous to-an d-fro between scenario and action. Whatever SC is, organisational capabilities without it lead to organisational rigidity. According to Professor van der Heijden, strategic conversation is always based o n a question, the topic of which may include entrepreneurial invention, unique a ctivity, competitive advantage, strategic investments, and distinctive competenc ies. This is a big picture view of strategic conversation - the look outwards f rom the organisation. On the other hand, Von Krogh & Ros describe strategic con versation as the currency of strategic organisational knowledge - an inwards and p rocess view. One way to make sense of these opinions on SC is to sort them into macro and mic ro views. Macro gives the big picture of the SC construct shared by managers an d practitioners about where, when, why, and the focus of the topic. The micro v iew, on the other hand, refers to strategic conversation examined at the level o f micro-skills and looks at strategic conversation as being interpersonal commun ication with certain characteristics, including being open rather than closed. The two views seem equally legitimate and can be shown to support each other. Su mmarising, strategic conversation can be regarded being as conversation (micro)

that is strategic (macro) - requiring quite distinct attention to detail, and sk ills. Strategic Conversation is the overarching concept that systematically and purposefully embraces strategic thinking, strategic dialogue, strategic debate, strategic discussion and strategic decision-making. Strategic Conversation is complex - but not complicated. References van der Heijden K, The learning organisation: How planners create organisational learning, Marketing Intelligence and Learning, 1992, 10, 6 Hamel G Prahalad C, Strategic Intent, Harvard Business Review, May-June 1989, p 63-76 Senge P, The Fifth Discipline, New York: Doubleday/Currency; 1991 Von Krogh G Ros J, Conversation management, European Management Journal, 13, 4, 1995, p 390-394