Strategy Meets Reality Podcast

Freedom Within Constraints: Julian Chender on Strategy, Capabilities and Navigating Organisational Reality

• Mike Jones • Season 1 • Episode 33

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In this episode of Strategy Meets Reality, Mike Jones is joined by Julian Chender—organisational design expert, strategy advisor, and founder of 11A Collaborative—to explore how to make strategy work in the messy reality of organisational life.

Julian draws on years of experience helping purpose-driven organisations redesign themselves to stay viable. They unpack the challenges of structure, capabilities, and leadership transitions—revealing how real constraints can actually sharpen strategic execution when handled with clarity and care.

From trust and convergence to feedback loops and freedom within constraints, this is a practical conversation for leaders navigating change, collaboration, and complexity.

🔍 In this episode:

  • What organisational design really means—and why it’s strategic
  • Adapting capabilities when strategy shifts
  • Freedom within constraints: the paradox of effective delivery
  • Building trust, feedback, and convergence into your operating model
  • How organisational structure shapes—and enables—impact

🎧 Keywords: Strategy, Organisational Design, Operating Models, Structure, Capabilities, Leadership, Execution, Collaboration, Purpose-Driven, Julian Chender

📘 Learn more about Julian’s work: https://www.linkedin.com/in/julianchender

🌐 11A Collaborative: https://www.linkedin.com/company/11a-collaborative/

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🔗 Full episodes, show notes, and resources: https://www.lbiconsulting.com/strategymeetsreality-podcast

📺 Watch on YouTube → https://www.youtube.com/@StrategyMeetsReality

Connect with host Mike Jones → https://www.linkedin.com/in/mike-h-jones/

Julian Chender (00:00)
we don't need to agree. We just need to converge.

I think the idea of freedom within constraints is so important to success. And so let's embrace these constraints and use them as the basis of our strategy.

how can I show off?

that I have outsized impact with limited resources. it's possible through good flexible strategy and good organization design

Mike Jones (00:31)
Welcome back to the Strategy Meets Reality podcast. I'm delighted to be joined by Julian Chender today. Thank you for joining me on the show. It's fabulous to have you on.

Julian Chender (00:40)
I'm honored to be here. I've been a big fan for a long time.

Mike Jones (00:44)
I know we've, me too, and I know we've communicated online but we never really actually got to sit down and have a conversation so I'm really excited about this. So for our listeners, do mind giving a bit of background about yourself and a bit of context of what you've been up to lately?

Julian Chender (00:54)
Me too.

Sure. So I would say I'm an org designer first and a strategist second. But the two are for me mutually exclusive. And my work is is exclusively in the social sector. So that means everything from the CSR work of corporations to direct service charities. ⁓ So it's a bit of a broad swath, but it's

Mike Jones (01:22)
Yes.

Julian Chender (01:25)
It's a do-gooder space. And it's a space that I find doesn't have the same repetition with these concepts of strategy and org design that my work in the corporate space did. So I'm doing a lot to translate right now to a new field, but it's a field that's, think, growing and picking it up and needing to in the wake of a lot of

Mike Jones (01:39)
Yeah.

Julian Chender (01:48)
⁓ trauma in international aid and just the nonprofit sector here in the US is threatened every day.

Mike Jones (01:58)
Yes. Yeah, I've seen this a lot with that. And I think that that's where strategy really comes into its own. And I've really picking up that point you saying about strategy and sort of the social sector in those, because for a long time, the orthodoxy around strategy or the thing is all around at best, probably Roger Martin's thing where it's all about, you know, where do we win? And it's all about it's

It's all great if I'm selling Persil, but when you're Persil, I don't know, the same in America, but Washington detergent, know, but yeah, yeah, yeah. But if, in the social sector, it's not, it's not about necessarily winning. It's about how to be viable. Yeah. It's about the viability of having that input.

Julian Chender (02:37)
No, it's about impact. It's about impact is how do we,

the viability to have an impact. Yes, I'm sorry to talk over you. It's a bit of my New Yorker style. But it is, it's not how do we win. It's what impact we want to have in what area and how do we be clear about that? And where a lot of this falls down is we want to help everybody do everything because we care. And that's great.

Mike Jones (02:45)
Yeah, yeah,

and

Julian Chender (03:04)
And few organizations can accomplish that. In fact, I would say no organization can accomplish, can be everything to everybody. So what is your field of play? Who is your constituency? Who are your, your beneficiaries? You know, really doing a, almost a strategy map of, you know, these people might be in your orbit, but they aren't the people you serve, but you need them to serve the people you want to. If you're doing housing or if you're doing right now, food is a really big issue.

with our food assistance program being withheld with the government shutdown. So there's like, okay, but what's the population we can target? Is it these four blocks of New York City or is it the East coast of the United States? What's our field of play becomes a huge question for people. And I feel like that's really is where you can have strong impact in a narrow field of play.

Mike Jones (03:59)
Yeah, and it's like what Clausewitz talked about, which is no organization regarded society as unlimited resources, therefore structured about utilizing those limited resources to your advantage. And that's just the same with the corporate world. I think people get this thing where they try to be everything, but try to be everything means a lot of resource, a lot of thing, and organizations don't have it. So I think being...

very clear on what you're there to do really helps a lot.

Julian Chender (04:35)
Yeah. And I think resources are an interesting concept here, especially in the social sector, because I entered, I started my business 11a collaborative working exclusively in the social sector. I left Accenture in September of last year. So before our presidential election and business was good through the end of November. So the presidential election was the beginning of November, end of November, Christmas hits, you know, holidays hit.

everyone goes dark. By January 20th, the sector was frozen, which was Inauguration Day. Like the whole sector was frozen and by March, half of it was dismantled. And by May, everyone was sitting there just going, we have to scenario plan, we have to scenario plan, we have to scenario plan. And I sat here thinking, with the level of uncertainty, chaos even, that we have as organizations,

What scenario planning going to get you? Because you might have one scenario, if you do a great scenario plan, like three solid pages of what the scenario is, that's going to hit from four to 445 on Friday. And by 9 a.m. Monday, it's going to be completely different.

Mike Jones (05:49)
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, I get it. You say right, and I think a lot of these things like scenario planning, and like you said, they are useful, but sometimes people then use it as a problem to be gazed at rather than, well, what decisions do we need to make now? What affordances have we got? What adjacent possibilities? How can we start to maneuver around this? And I think that's where we've lost the art of strategy. It's gone.

we've moved away from that maneuverability. How do we sense what's happening? And I was chatting to on the previous podcast, Elsa Henderson, she was in social packed and she said about Trump and obviously cut the funding, USAID and all this stuff. And I said, yeah, but this is the art, because you should be looking, sensing, going, well, how would we know if he does that, then what can we do rather than...

I suppose, staring at the problem and then having to react to very limited options.

Julian Chender (06:50)
I love the way you think.

Mike Jones (06:52)
Cheers, don't keep...

Julian Chender (06:52)
And I

would say most of the social sector sat and stared at the problem and saw their options increasingly limit. And that's why we're in a position where funders are pushing mergers, they're pushing dignified closures, people are scraping by with what they have. But I think we missed an opportunity as a sector to be active strategists in the midst of a chaotic environment.

And my uncle, was, I consider a very wise person, told me when I was trying to figure out my own strategy for a career, that I have to put something out into the universe and see what comes back. So when you talk about sensing, I call it pinging. It's like, it's almost like a sonar. It's like you paint, you send a ping and then you see what comes back. And all of a sudden, then you can, if it comes back,

Mike Jones (07:36)
Yes.

Yeah, yeah.

Julian Chender (07:48)
sideways, you know, to maneuver a certain way, if it comes back straight, you know, to maneuver a different way. And so this is where I see strategy as being constantly adaptive, or, constantly ⁓ in motion and really a muscle that an organization uses and, and governs. And so much of what I see is the, and this is corporate and social. So is the inability to govern strategy on an ongoing basis.

that setting it, everyone feels great about setting it. But to run it like the operation that it is, is something that I think is lacking across industries. What do you think?

Mike Jones (08:28)
Yeah, I completely agree. Is that that whole execution? you know, I do challenge sometimes around the setting of it as well, because I think they get locked in on this abstract idea of strategy, which then hinders their ability to sense and adapt from because they go more what we adapt in from from and you see people go, well, we want to be the, you know, the best like.

charity or thing or we want the best organization, we want high performing this and yeah, well, that's not really, that's not really strategy. That's, that's a nice, nice ambition, it's not. Yeah. We try to execute in there. Yeah. It's, it's, it's really your relationship with the extended environment and you know, trying to get that to your advantage, all time. And that's how we.

Julian Chender (08:56)
personal.

It's an ambition. The strategy is how you get there. Right?

Yeah.

Mike Jones (09:20)
and this is why the relationship where you said you were an org design first and strategy second I find that really interesting because obviously with strategy I'll say I'm a strategist but then I have to get involved in org design because the two are so mutually exclusive that the and I think this is often missing in the strategy work

is they frame this strategy and this is probably why they can't move or sense because they frame the strategy but they don't realize then the organization will either constrain or make possible the strategy.

Julian Chender (09:57)
Yes. So the way I've worked with that over the last five-ish years is really thinking about

Okay, you have a very concrete strategy. And again, we're taking that with a grain of salt in this conversation, the idea of a concrete strategy, but that's what people like because they can hang their hat on it and sleep at night. I think what you and I are asking people to do in terms of adaptive strategy or continuous strategy, or even just sensing your environment and responding responsive strategy is a

Mike Jones (10:13)
Yeah,

Julian Chender (10:34)
uncomfortable place to be as a human being. It brings up feelings of uncertainty, of doubt, of lack of clarity. And I think the human mind and especially the way we're socialized in the West is for certainty and measurable progress. And so how are we going to even measure our progress if we're adapting all the time? So I

Mike Jones (10:52)
Yes.

Julian Chender (10:58)
take all that with grain of salt. But a lot of the work I've done is to take what is a more or less concrete strategy and say, how are you going to achieve this with what you have or what do you need to do differently to achieve this? for instance, I worked with an organization, a corporate philanthropy that was constrained financially as we went along.

and wanting to increase their impact in economic mobility for young people. And so we had two competing priorities, which was cost savings and increased impact. And the way to do that was through the organization itself, because before they had been exposing young people to career opportunities.

and doing scholarships and doing career fairs and like, what do you want to be when you grow up? And they had all these classes and they were nationwide and they had all these things where people could really explore and play and figure out what they wanted to be and how to get there. And they were now focusing on instead of introductory, we want to the next level.

We want actually to see them get jobs and to improve their economic situation. Well, the organization that did all the classes is not the organization that's going to get them jobs and make them more money and help them grow up the economic ladder. Cause it's a different purpose. It's not even, it's not even a different strategy. It's a completely different purpose. So that was a process of inter

Mike Jones (12:30)
Yeah.

Yes.

Mm, I agree.

Julian Chender (12:45)
intertwining or design and strategy development as we went over the course of a year. Because that was over the course of, I mean, basically pre Trump inauguration to Trump inauguration to tariffs to all these things. And they're thinking, well, is the company going to give us enough money? What's happening to the foundation dollars? The tax bill from this summer changed what corporations could do with their foundations. Do we even have a foundation anymore?

Mike Jones (12:51)
Yeah, I'm with you.

Julian Chender (13:14)
all of that going on while trying to concentrate impact and boost, boost measurably the impact that they're having because introduction, introducing people to career options is wonderful and they might not get that elsewhere, but that's, that's kind of level one on a hierarchy of, of progress where economic mobility is level three or four.

Mike Jones (13:19)
Yes.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And I like that idea. They've got that clear intent what they're going to do and they can understand then that actually the current organization will not get them to that situation. So then it's about going, okay, so what do we need? And it's always, I always say then from that, that's always, you've got the capability. You're just redirecting it in a different way, or you need to create new capability. yeah.

Julian Chender (14:04)
Exactly. And I think that's

what it is, is what are the capabilities that are the capabilities that got you there won't get you here. Maybe, you know, table stakes capabilities will translate. And a lot of organizations I've worked with are are struggling even on table stakes capabilities, like, you know, you know, following directions and all these things, you know, little things that we have to get in order just to just to be at the at the starting point.

Mike Jones (14:12)
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Yes.

Julian Chender (14:32)
And then what are the capabilities that are going to get you to those outcomes? And if that's to be the best, you know, the best seller of Tide detergent and for Tide to be number one in across, you know, Europe, then you have this matrix thing where you're doing the general manager of Europe and the head of Tide and they're figuring out what the next washing machine is going to be and how to make the right formulation of the soap and what is the packaging and all of that. Then you have this whole thing where it's like,

Well, we have the capability to do all of that because we've done it with three different new kinds of washing machines in Europe based on the legal ramifications of energy efficiency for the last 15, 20 years. So those capabilities can remain the same. But here where you're measurably creating a different outcome or product, I mean, these outcomes are considered products or programs, then the capability is fundamentally different. It needs to be either built, bought,

Mike Jones (15:09)
Yeah, yeah.

Yeah. Yeah.

Julian Chender (15:31)
or botted, automated, which is now an option. ⁓ The thing is, building capabilities is much more long, has a lot better longevity than buying. ⁓ But there are organizations that just can't build because they don't have enough to build on. And so I've worked with organizations where buying is the best option, hiring a new senior team or, you know,

Mike Jones (15:34)
Yeah, yeah, yeah, true.

Yes.

Julian Chender (16:00)
If we're going in a direction of, was one organization that shifted direction. It was a bit of a, there was, there was kind of a confluence of events was, was they, they ran out of funding because of Trump, but had to respond to their social justice organization. So, you know, Trump says no one can fund social justice anymore. All of a sudden foundations pull back, corporations pull back.

Individuals pull back from the funding them. So they have all of sudden a lack of funding and now social justice needs for them four times the fight it needed in 2017 during the first Trump administration. So they had this thing where they had to do a whole capability switch on a reduced resources. So it was who in our organization.

Mike Jones (16:43)
Yes.

Yes.

Julian Chender (16:57)
can instead of being specialists on every little issue that we fight on, they had 11 issue areas. And that's how they were organized by our issue area. So we had to think about actually before we even got the strategy, we had to think about cost savings and orientation to the problem that we want to solve. We knew the problem to solve. The strategy is now in development after some of the organization design, which is not the way I like to do things, but is the way this needed to happen.

Mike Jones (17:05)
Okay, yeah, yeah.

Yes.

Julian Chender (17:25)
because they couldn't run the budget that they had, and it wasn't getting them the results they needed. So it was kind of both and. And so now they've gone from being specialists to generalists, which is because everything that they respond to is interconnected across those 11 issue areas now. You know, the way...

Mike Jones (17:36)
Yes, yeah.

Mm.

Julian Chender (17:53)
attacks on civil rights are seen from this organization is interconnected and interdisciplinary in this new world. Whereas before it was clear, cut and dried, know, immigration was immigration and school was school and voting rights was voting rights. No, now those three things are all in one. Because when ICE shows up in Chicago at schools and at polling places, it's all interconnected.

Mike Jones (18:01)
Hmm.

Julian Chender (18:19)
So they have to, they've translated to being generalists, but now we have to build the strategy of what does it mean to be a generalist, which is to be adaptive.

Mike Jones (18:26)
Yeah, yeah, yeah. That shows you great agility to be able to move resources and quickly adapt capability. And I suppose again, this is where we look at it's not clear cut, it's not one feeds the other. It's the, you know, whatever the context is will feed what it needs to feed. So actually I might be in these situations where we need to sort the organization out into a point, which then by doing that,

releases options that wouldn't probably have been available in the strategy. And that's why the two were so interrelated. But all the time that I see is in organizations, they do it in separate. they'll, we've got this strategy and then let's tweak around the organization here. They do them in isolation to each other, to detriment of each other, which really frustrating.

Julian Chender (19:22)
As a consultant to this. Where do you see those capabilities? Where's your angle when you're working with clients to talk about the capabilities you'll need to realize your ambition?

Mike Jones (19:24)
Yes, yeah, yeah,

Well, this is when we're doing the, well, say for instance, we're doing strategy first. We're looking at the external environment and we're looking at the different actors and we're assessing our relationship with those. And the question always is that if you do nothing, would you be happy where this takes you? And if the answer is no, then what do you need to do to change the nature of that relationship? And that's where the maneuvers come in. Well, we need to...

Julian Chender (19:53)
Mm-hmm.

Mike Jones (20:07)
Put more in a sense, strength around this area. Well, what does that mean? Well, it means that we need to move this. Okay, so, and it's always translating back to the organization. So everything they say they're gonna do is go, well, okay, so where and how, where in the organization can constitute that from? How are you going to do that? And that then gets clients to start recognizing the relationship between the organization and strategy and strategy and the organization.

⁓ And then, yeah, and then often as well when we're looking at strategy, we can see a strategy that they want to do or they need to do, but they are not capable. This is not in a million years at this point in time that they will be able, it would be too much stretch and after they try to go for it, they're probably actually destabilise themselves. So then we go, well, okay, so what do we need to do first then? What can we do?

Julian Chender (20:35)
I love.

Mike Jones (21:00)
As in, we get to that point and then that will open up options and we can do that. But it's always that relationship between the organisation change and how do we balance that.

Julian Chender (21:11)
Yeah, that resonates where I run into trouble with that. And because I do, I do similar similarly, but where I run into trouble is, is the quick fall down the cliff into tactics.

Mike Jones (21:25)
Yes, yeah, yes. ⁓

Julian Chender (21:27)
When when translating

from strategy to organization, it's just, well, we need to do this project.

or that program of work. And I'm thinking, these are tactics. This is, you know, maybe six weeks down the line. But if you just fall into tactics, you're working then bottom up from a tactic driven. The sum of your tactics equal your strategy, which is not not where we want to be. But it's that it's that link between capabilities.

Mike Jones (21:39)
Yes.

Yeah.

No.

Julian Chender (21:58)
It's that link between strategy and capabilities where I find a lot of people fall off into tactics. And I wonder how, how you've seen that.

Mike Jones (22:04)
This is why I create great inspiration from Von Mokta and what Von Mokta, yeah, he's an absolute legend. People who listen to this know, or would read any of my stuff, you'll see I've mentioned Von Mokta. But he talks about, this is a shortened quote of his, but he says, the higher you are, the shorter your order. And it comes into mission command. So often when they're going into that, I have to get them back and go, well, no, what's the...

Julian Chender (22:10)
One of my favorites.

Mm-hmm.

Mike Jones (22:32)
what's the outcome or the capability shift you want to make, not how you're doing it. And I have to try and get them back to the recursive level. So all the time when they're talking about stuff, I said, right, yeah, that's great. But by those activities you're talking about, what is it that you're wanting to achieve? I get them to focus on that. And then we go, right, that's the order you need to go to and say, so it's not going, all right, we're gonna do this project, this project here and this here.

You're going to say for instance, the R &D department say R &D, head of R &D, I need you to change your cycle rate from 12 months to six months. I was like, that's.

Julian Chender (23:14)
But you're not telling

the head of R &D exactly how to do that. Right.

Mike Jones (23:18)
No,

exactly. And that's where it's trying to get them back. And this is where the, you you comment on one of my posts the other day when I shared my article around, you know, you must protect the ability to act. And this is what we're talking about, giving people the agency, because when we talk about that adaptive strategy, it's that capacity there that enables us to adapt. You know, what we're doing is not really gonna fundamentally change.

As you were talking about, one of your clients there around, you know, they're going through an organization and then, you know, other issues. The aim to try and get economic mobility was still there. They're just adapting to those changing circumstances. And it's not the, and I keep saying to you, it's not the executives. You're not the one adapting. It's the people on the ground are adapting. So you've got to give them the freedom of action. Yeah.

Julian Chender (23:58)
Mm-hmm.

And what?

I love the mission command approach. And I love this idea of your order is shorter at the top. And I have, from my time working with Amy Cates, this model of layers of leadership. There's kind of a strategic layer, which should meet very frequently, but do very little. And.

Mike Jones (24:15)
Mm.

Mmm.

Julian Chender (24:34)
And have a very long time horizon. Then there's the integrative layer, which is knitting the organization together to achieve the strategy. And then there's the operational layer, which is if you're selling soap, you're selling soap. So there's producing, producing the soap or whatever it is. And what I find in, in all my work is that that strategic layer is, is so far down in the organization that they've lost their strategy. Because they think they're helping.

Mike Jones (24:46)
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Yes.

Yeah, yeah. You see it, they get involved in some crazy stuff. I sit there in executives and I think, why do you care about that? That's not your battle to have. That's someone else's battle to have. now, yeah, well, I always say with leaders about trust, there's normally reasons why you don't trust something. So it's either they haven't got the capability or skills experience. So I suggest you

Julian Chender (25:17)
Is it a trust thing?

Mike Jones (25:31)
you bring in some constraints and then you build up that KSE quickly as possible. They're morally corrupt. So they're morally corrupt, you don't trust them, then you best to do something about it. Or it's you. And a lot of the time, especially when you're speaking to people that are really, I suppose in personality terms, really outcome focused, high and conscientious, they're not exactly naturally trusting of people.

and they think that they can do it better themselves, they just do it. Well then that's you, you need to get over that pretty quickly. But you've got to trust, it's fundamental to von Malkus's whole philosophy is around trust.

Julian Chender (26:11)
Yeah. I mean, I think, I think half of what I do is strategy and art design and half of what I do is really that individual work with leaders and the time, the time spent is not 50 50, but the energy is 50 50. Um, because when, when you're re redoing an organization, think

Mike Jones (26:23)
Mmm.

Yes, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Julian Chender (26:40)
top to bottom strategy, even the impact you want to have. So let's go back to the economic mobility. The leader was new and had that new vision, but everyone else was used to everything the way it had been for six to 10 years. So there was a quality of her adapting to them and them adapting to her. That's a new leader situation. But then there's the one where you have a leader who's been there for four or five years.

with the Trump inauguration in civil rights and social justice needing to switch. And so there is a quality of what is the leader's internal constellation of the organization, their own felt unseen sense that lives within them. That like what organization are they leading is really the question. Are they leading the new organization or are they leading the old organization?

Mike Jones (27:31)
Yeah, yeah, yeah. ⁓

Julian Chender (27:36)
And so a lot of what I do in organization design and strategy work is that individual work with the leaders or the leadership team often because they're the ones who will be governing the strategy going forward. And, and this is where I find everything falls apart, which is we can have the design, we can have the strategy, we can even have the adaptability built into the strategy on paper.

But if you're not meeting regularly to sense the environment, to collaborate, to put your heads together, to check on how things are, to ping the universe with those sonar pings, you're not going to adapt continuously. You're not governing the organization. You're not governing the strategy. You're just plodding along as if everything were normal.

Mike Jones (28:13)
Yeah, yeah.

Mm.

Julian Chender (28:24)
nothing is ever normal because everything's constantly in flux. mean, how many times do we have to see the quote, the only thing consistent is change, for someone to actually play as if that were the real thing.

Mike Jones (28:34)
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Yeah, I that. And I always believe that, you know, I always say that strategy is not an output, it's a way of being. And I think what you're talking now is perfectly about that. Well, I've got the output, but then the output doesn't match the model, the orientation that that person is using to navigate decisions. And that really comes to, we're gonna talk about the perceptual complexity, the fact that we are all

We are all beautiful individuals, but because we're individuals in a collective system, that brings a great challenge. And the fact that we perceive things very differently. So how do we externalize or make what we see explicit? Because once we can make explicit, then we can start to see the difference between what I believe to be true and what you believe to be true and be curious about why you're seeing what you're seeing and what does that mean to me? Yeah.

Julian Chender (29:36)
You

know, I used that article with this client. And first of all, there was a lot of jealousy for your vacation in the Dolomites. ⁓ Yeah. And what a place for inspiration. And I had to explain to them that they should also take vacations and take inspiration from them. ⁓ But what they really latched on to was we don't need to agree. We just need to converge.

Mike Jones (29:44)
Alright yeah, yeah, it's beautiful place.

Is that you?

Yes. Yes.

Julian Chender (30:05)
Cause

we are never going to agree. And they are so, especially in the social sector, which is very people centered, very person first, like in org design, the idea of designing a department around an individual is very well accepted rather than designing around a capability or a function. It's like, no, we love Susie. So we're going to make a department around Susie. Why Susie? no, cause she's been here for 30 years and we love her. What does she do? Well, you're not sure, but she can, she can manage all these staff.

Mike Jones (30:23)
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Yes.

Julian Chender (30:34)
Well, what do they do? Nothing that Susie does. So they, it's very person centered. It's just part of who they are. But for them, the permission to not agree with each other and not have consensus on everything was a huge unlock from that article. The idea that we're all going to maintain our own perspectives. We just need to share them and converge on what is the mountain range around the lake that we're seeing. And yes, we're all seeing different parts of

Mike Jones (30:35)
Yeah.

you

Julian Chender (31:01)
you know, the blind men and the elephant, we're all seeing different parts of the elephant, how do we get a whole picture of the elephant? Which doesn't have to be agreed upon, but, you know, handshake agreed upon, but can be enough of a convergence for us to move forward. And, and that is the was the biggest unlock. And I can't thank you enough for that, because that has made waves with this client that that substack on perceptual complexity.

Mike Jones (31:16)
Yes.

I'm really chuffed and glad and you know and that's what I do I love I love writing and sharing my thoughts so that you know hopefully it can help people

Julian Chender (31:36)
Yeah, if anything,

I owe you money for that.

Mike Jones (31:39)
I've sent you my bill. ⁓ But that's such an important thing around the consensus bit. And I think that's where, in one of my other articles I talked about, where we need to reclaim strategy from what it was. Because what we've spoke about so far is exactly what Sun Tzu talked about 300 years before Christ. It's all about movement. It's all about being very clear on your intent, but being fluid like water.

Julian Chender (31:41)
I'm gonna go to

Mike Jones (32:06)
to modern day where it's all made very rigid, it's stiff, it's all about consensus and everyone must be included in the strategy. I'm like, well, they don't need to be included in the strategy because sometimes the strategy is, you just carry on, do what you need to do. You're fine in this, you carry on doing what you need to do.

you know, the organization is doing this, so I need you to do this, I you to do that. But we don't have to necessarily all agree and have to be around it. So we can have that divergence, you know, in thoughts, but we must have that convergence in action. So when we step out and we start to direct the organization to execute that they are diverging, they are converging.

Julian Chender (32:53)
Mm-hmm.

Mike Jones (33:01)
to a common intent.

Julian Chender (33:04)
Right. And that common intent once clear becomes a great converging force. But when, when, when debated, when the common intent is debated is, is where I I've entered a lot of organizations or where the common, the common log, what I'll call the North star is set by, let's say the executive team or leadership or a single CEO.

Mike Jones (33:08)
Mm.

Yes.

Yes.

Julian Chender (33:31)
And everyone else goes, yeah, I'm not so sure I believe in that. You know, so what's the process to get convergence around the North Star so that we can, this is a phrase I hate, but I'll at least be rowing in the same direction. And if you disagree, just don't put your paddle in the water is the phrase I've heard. But don't, don't row against the boat, but let's all try to row as if we have some path that we're taking.

Mike Jones (33:35)
Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Yes. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Yeah, ⁓

Julian Chender (34:02)
What I find about that is...

If you use the North Star as a metaphor, as the night goes on, it changes.

Mike Jones (34:09)
Mmm.

Julian Chender (34:10)
And then it's day and you don't have the North Star anymore. And then it's night and you have it and you can reorient. So you're constantly reorienting to that North Star. And I think that's what gets lost in the governance portion.

Mike Jones (34:19)
Yeah, yeah,

Yes, and another part about that convergence is that, know, generally, when the direction comes from executives, if you kept it at the right, again, it'd come back to that right level of the thing. I don't think many people would disagree with what you're saying. I think where the issues come is that people then start to dictate the how at too much of a lower level.

that's where it comes and go, well, I don't agree. And they probably don't agree because they're the ones closer to the information. And actually they can see and that's the whole thing around micromanagement people feel is not so much the fact that I am getting micromanaged, it's the frustration because you can see the options and you're not allowed to take those options when you know it will be the best way to meet the intention.

Julian Chender (35:19)
So when we think about North Stars or what I call goalposts, like at least setting our field of play, you know, what are the boundaries? I like to take a diagonal section of the organization all the way from the top of the house to the front line with a max mix of diversity to have that conversation with the executive in the room. But to say, look, I'm the one out there doing the work on the

You have your view from 30,000 feet. I have the view from literally zero feet sea level. So how do we build that connection between your nurse star and my boots on the ground reality? And that becomes then if we can set those goalposts or those agreed upon directions from, from those ends of the organization, it becomes much more easy to do that mission command kind of point of view where it's like.

This is vetted at all levels. So now there's freedom to play at the levels based on this.

Mike Jones (36:22)
Yeah, we talk about that in a sense, I always talk about the feedback loops that exist. And what I mean by that is that when you're giving direction and the intent, you give that, but you give space for the next level down to assimilate that and feedback what they've took from it. And again, that's dealing with that perceptual complexity because I can give intent to all I want, but then I'm assuming that person is in...

Julian Chender (36:27)
Mm-hmm.

Mike Jones (36:48)
it's simulated that the way it was meant, which is often a challenge. That's why we say we must give them space to do a couple of questions, which is, you what's the situation? How does it affect us? So what's the current context we're operating in? And then what have I been told to do and why? So actually understanding what is it they're asking, what's implied, what's explicit, where are my freedoms? You know, what can I do? And then we...

Once you've done that, you feed back and go, well, I've understood what you've asked me for, and this is what I plan to do. Or even better, I know what you're asking for, but I think we could do this, but I'm constrained by this. Can you remove that constraint? Give me an extra 100,000 or whatever the constraint is, and we do this. Otherwise, I've got to do this. And the whole point of that is that two-way communication, that conversation, so that at each level...

Julian Chender (37:32)
Mm-hmm.

Mike Jones (37:44)
you're happy that we're aligned. We don't have to be perfect, but we've got enough coherence that I know that you can go off and adapt and deliver the intention, but I don't have to dictate how you're doing it.

Julian Chender (37:58)
Which brings me to my least

favorite word, which cascading.

Mike Jones (38:02)
Yes, yes, yeah, yeah, yes, yes. He's never cascading. Yeah. No, no, no.

Julian Chender (38:06)
It's right up there. There's no such thing. It's called telling.

Mike Jones (38:12)
Yes, that's yeah. And that's what it is. It's, it's, it's, it's, it's not cascade. It's not in the sense of what I've just talked about where you're given that freedom of action. can adapt that. That is like, you are to do this very specific thing. And here's, here's a load of KPIs. Yeah. Yeah. It's been decided.

Julian Chender (38:22)
No.

It's been decided. I mean, it's

micromanaging without someone breathing down your neck. But your job's been written, everything's done, and you have no say from your perspective. And that's what I try to get my clients to do is build in that perspective from the beginning. Because if we can have that...

Mike Jones (38:54)
Mm. Yeah.

Julian Chender (38:57)
that person who can say boots on the ground, this is the constraint for this goalpost. When we're making the goalposts, then the conversation around the goalpost becomes much more freeing for the organization. You know, I really believe in this idea of freedom within constraints. ⁓ And that's why I chose it in part to work in the social sector. It was, it's one of the most constrained sectors. I mean, it's one of.

Mike Jones (39:14)
Yes.

Julian Chender (39:24)
one of the most constrained in taxes and funding and all the ways they operate and all the things they have to do and all the compliance. It's one of the most constrained. I mean, I think healthcare would probably be the next constrained, you know, but.

Mike Jones (39:37)
Yeah. ⁓

Julian Chender (39:39)
you know, there's more money in healthcare, at least there's some flowing. So I chose the most constrained sector because I think the idea of freedom within constraints is so important to success. And so let's embrace these constraints and use them as the basis of our strategy.

Mike Jones (39:41)
Yeah, yeah,

Yeah. And always, like I always say to people, everyone's constrained, but you must, you must exploit your freedoms. And yeah, and, and this is where cascading thing you were talking about was, is also this obsession by management, by KPIs and, OKRs. But the problem with that then, like you were saying, that freedom to adapt, that removes the freedom to adapt because I'm not, I'm aiming for an aim.

rather than understanding the context and the external environment and what's changing and then thus then what do I need to do in response.

Julian Chender (40:37)
Right. And it completely takes away what you are talking about also, which in one of your articles, which was a safe to fail experiment. And so if I have to meet these KPIs for this strategy, what if that strategy, the entire external environment has changed in the six months since that strategy is written, but I'm still trying to meet those KPIs in the same way. I can't experiment with other ways to meet those KPIs because it's too risky if they'll miss them. And then I'll lose my bonus. I'll lose my job.

Mike Jones (40:44)
Yes. Yeah, yeah.

Julian Chender (41:06)
whatever it is, then you have people rowing in the wrong direction because the sea has changed.

Mike Jones (41:12)
Yeah.

Yeah. And that's the thing. They then forget to look at the, or to them, the external environment becomes irrelevant because ⁓ they are now just aiming for a construct, a performance construct that I must hit these aims and they construct the aims rather than the, to meet the higher intent.

Julian Chender (41:22)
Mm-hmm.

I would argue that it's never relevant, but they ignore it.

Mike Jones (41:38)
Yeah, yeah, pretty much. yeah. because you're get what, know, is that thing, isn't it? You know, if everything's green, I'm good, you know, but regardless of what's going on, because no one, you know, you're looking, unfortunately, in lot of organizations, people don't get praise for, you know, the organization afloat and, you know, making sure they're not there.

They get done for heroism and that's it. They get praised for heroism. Heroism normally is chasing those numbers or making it look like a crisis so they can be the hero. That's not really what we need.

Julian Chender (42:10)
Mm-hmm.

No, not at all. I think we agree there.

Mike Jones (42:21)
No.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So what do you think the, know, definitely in your field now, because it is heavily constrained and you're balancing that organization that is also heavily constrained with some really challenging options in the external environment. And I put this because someone put on a post in LinkedIn that their favorite quote was that,

Strategy is unlimited choices with limited resources. And I hope you agree with what I'm on about in your world, there isn't unlimited choices. There's actually some very limited and often unpalatable choices with very limited resources. So, you know, how do you help your clients through that?

Julian Chender (43:08)
I think it's really coming down to we have bad and bad and bad as our three options. Which bad is the best bad for us?

Mike Jones (43:17)
Mm, yeah.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, agree.

Julian Chender (43:22)
And,

and which one can we tolerate becomes the personal question. Like one of those is going to be off limits because it's morally corrupt. As you said earlier about people, it's like one of those is going to be morally corrupt. So we're not going to do that of the other two, which one can we live with? And it's really about, about, you know, doing the best with what we have doesn't always feel positive. And I think, I think we've, we've come off.

Mike Jones (43:28)
Mm.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Julian Chender (43:50)
You know, a post pandemic influx of funding and lots of freedoms within this sector to do a lot. And it's always been constrained and there's always been the people who are arguing against the constraints and saying why we're constrained and why those constraints are bad. There's not a lot of conversation about what am I doing to make the best of my constraints? And, and how can I, how can I show off?

Mike Jones (44:14)
Yes, yeah, yeah.

Julian Chender (44:20)
that I have outsized impact with limited resources. And that's really what I'm getting after is that it's possible through good flexible strategy and good organization design to have outsized impact with limited resources.

Mike Jones (44:24)
Yes.

Yeah, I totally agree. You know, plenty of options there when you're looking at... And I suppose it comes back to this perceptual complexity. It's listening to others to understand there is a different way to do it. You know, in challenging your own... We talk about orientation, challenging your own orientation, looking for differences between what you always held to be true and what's happening in reality, what could do.

and this notion that we have as humans, we've got limited energy. And why waste all that energy butting heads against a constraint that won't go away when I can focus that on what is possible.

Julian Chender (45:18)
Right. Well said, Mike. And the final thing I'll say is that I think the sector as a whole is starting to lose its original mental model of who they are, how they exist, everything from tax status to operational excellence. The mental model that has been built over, you know, a hundred years since the Great Depression.

or earlier since settlement houses in this country in the 1890s, the kind of original charities here, at least in New York, were settlement houses helping new immigrants. every 10 years, it was a different country, but the settlement houses stayed in the neighborhoods and built those up. So from the settlement houses, the mindset of charity and doing good in the world, the mental model of that is starting to fracture.

Mike Jones (45:53)
and

Julian Chender (46:10)
and we haven't started to birth a new mental model. We haven't started to do that futuring of our own for our own selves about the mental model of our our structures, processes, ways of working, but even as a sector, not just as individual organizations.

Mike Jones (46:27)
Yeah, and you know, that's a great opportunity because within chaos becomes options, you know, and again, and this is what I'm hoping that people get, especially in this conversation is that, know, strategies and organ design is such an important concept that should be held together, but realizing that strategy doesn't have to be, it's not have to be, it's...

is not always a nice thing. In a sense, it's not always going to be the perfect thing that we're gonna be the best this, best that. Actually, sometimes strategy is you have to go down some not so great paths to be able to then reel and take to something that will work, but it takes patience and it takes a lot of sensing and understanding.

Julian Chender (47:13)
Yes, think there's a, I'll just just to add to that, think there's an idea that strategy is the pleasant part of the work. It's the fun part. And it's actually not, it's the tough part.

Mike Jones (47:21)
Yeah, yeah, yeah. ⁓

Yeah, the necessary toughness, think, with that. Yeah. You know, I've thoroughly enjoyed this conversation. And I've commented on your post, actually, that you're hopefully going to be joining us, well, coming to UK in December-ish time? August, August, August, yes.

Julian Chender (47:47)
Yes, in August, in August. So it

might overlap with some people's holidays, but ⁓ I'll be in London with the Met Opera Orchestra, where my wife plays, in August.

Mike Jones (47:59)
⁓ nice.

yeah, because your wife's the show business, isn't she?

Julian Chender (48:04)
Yeah, she's the clarinetist at the opera. So they're going to be on tour through London, Paris and Lucerne. So I'm going to spend some extra time in London. See you and everyone else I can.

Mike Jones (48:06)
⁓ nice.

Okay, well, I'm in.

Yes, I'm only half an hour from London, so I'll definitely make sure that we make sure we have at least a beer if not more. But just before we depart, is there anything that you would like our listeners to think about from this episode?

Julian Chender (48:24)
Yes.

I think the thing I kept picking up on in our conversation was this idea of capabilities. That the link between strategy and the organization lies in the capabilities. And if you're not clear on those capabilities, you won't be clear on the organization and you won't be able to meet your strategy, even as it's changing and adapting.

Mike Jones (48:39)
Mm.

Julian Chender (48:53)
So I would think the thing to pay attention to out of this conversation really is the capabilities that lie in between the organization and the strategy.

Mike Jones (49:03)
Yeah, I get it. And that's such an important thing to make it actually work. Otherwise, the strategy will just be an output that sits on a wall or sits in a desk, which is not used to anyone. ⁓ this is... No, no, no, thank you. This has been a pleasure. It's actually given me so much to think about now, actually, from some of the articles. I'm probably gonna be...

Julian Chender (49:17)
Nope. Well, thank you so much, Mike.

Mike Jones (49:29)
busy tonight, we're in a way making notes for some more articles. So thank you very much for that. And for the listeners, if you liked this episode as much as I've enjoyed having this conversation with Julian, please share and like, and so that your network can get as much value as we got from this conversation. So thank you very much again, Julian. I look forward to sharing this with you and I look forward to seeing you in August in person.

Julian Chender (49:51)
Likewise, take care.

Mike Jones (49:53)
Take care.