Happy salutations to you. We reverence water for giving us reasons to write. As a starter, we wish to share again our outline. Please keep in mind that we will always share our progress with the outline every time we upload a composition.

General situation. In a world that is teaching and implementing acceleration and strategic agility for decision making at the corporate level with a wrong conceptual philosophy and design, the message that we get every day from the uppermost universities on earth as Columbia, MIT, Harvard, and even INSEAD is that NAIQIs _{(Nanotechnology, Artificial Intelligence, Quantum Supremacy, and the Internet)} leaders are pushing us everywhere using a new incorrect paradigm. And we are not making any judgment value here. We simply observe how things are being taught at business schools.

Our strategy domains. Eleonora Escalante Strategy has been following the strategy professors’ content of their courses at the MBA second-year level since I was teaching one of these courses once I returned from Zurich. I have been doing it for 20 years. As an outside observer, I tend to check every year how their strategy content has evolved or has changed, or improved. Over time, the classic corporate strategy or business policy for the growth and development of enterprises has kept the water (or anything related to sustainability and ESG) outside of their approach. In addition, even if the teaching method of cases has been privileged, YoY _{(Year over Year)} new cases are being updated; we also started to watch the following trend: the strategy professors who worked in their own academic area, or who had an own academic division, were positioned in other faculty academic groups. Probably only Harvard, University of Pennsylvania, INSEAD, and London Business School still merit the strategy under their own terms.  We also have observed that corporate strategy has been kept under the multi-business and MNC eyeglass’s view, which is something that needs to be modified. Even an entrepreneur with a basic division must have their own corporate strategy from start, so when they begin to grow or expand in multiple businesses or adjacencies, they will be ready to grow correctly. “Everything well done begins well”. Finally, NAIQIs have put a lot of pressure on business schools. Technology has come to be converted into the core backbone of everything, and the latter 2 years have accelerated it phenomenally.

What is happening now? A huge theoretical confusion. If we are bombarded daily with information, university programs, and open courses that aim to show us that our corporate strategy should be building data analytics for a digital transformation in a clear attempt to ignite a way forward, they land us to confuse our corporate strategy domain with data analytics or business analytics. Why is this happening? Simple: corporate strategy is about the decision-making of what to do with our endeavors. When leaders rely on data from the NAIQIs to make decisions, then they confuse decision-making with data analytics. As a result of this confusion, we are paving the wrong path for the next generations. Moreover, corporate strategy is not about how to do things, but what to do. And we are simply confusing our “whats” of corporate strategy with the wrong “hows” of business strategy, or even worst, with topics related to operational-functional strategy, which are also wrongly defined. We are failing to differentiate between business intelligence using NAIQIs and the core of corporate strategic decision-making. However, that is what is happening now. Everywhere. Everything we do in business and economics is being pushed to use NAIQIs. Unfortunately, by mistake or by ignorance, the power of the NAIQIs is so huge on our horizon, that we are confounding the how with the what.

Today´s aim is to cover a very significant chapter of this saga in the context that we already explained above. Here we go again.

Purpose of “What´s up with water: Pouring water in your corporate strategy”.  The purpose of this saga is to begin our pristine state-of-the-art contribution to the field of corporate strategy. (The state of the art refers to the highest level of general development, as of a device, technique, or scientific field achieved at a particular time). This is what we do when we write for you. And this saga is our first-hand practice about what should be taught in corporate strategy in business schools. Our purpose is to sway and touch the heartless existing contents of corporate strategy and hopefully begin to make an impact to change them. As when you throw a stone into a calm lake or peaceful pond with water, the impact of the rock pushes the water out of the way, making a ripple of consecutive waves that moves in concentric circles from where the object landed.  Be sure that not all strategists will like this content (some will be even upset or disturbed), but for those professors and consultants who have progressed enough in their mindsets, and have seen enough through their eyes, we look forward to launching a sway of transformation of the syllabus or even a summer storm of changes as Vivaldi piece interpreted below.

The rationale of “What´s up with water: Pouring water in your corporate strategy”.  A rationale is our list of fundamental reasons or the basis in which we expose our principles of reasons to write this saga. In one word it is our bottom line.

Our reasons to write are very well known by all of you. Eleonora Escalante Strategy principles are being released every time we start a saga, so here we go again: Our main reason to write this saga, as in all the epics that we produce, is to make you think, to help you to land into the art of making decisions but with an integral 360 degrees approach. Even though we focus on terms of education, business, and economics; we can apply any of our material to quotidian lives. Our rationale is also to help people to read again. We don´t produce videos with the clever intention that you can read our “not so flawless English” that is packed with integral and well-being ideas for making you think. In this saga scenario, we need to ask ourselves questions and resolve with possible answers about the nature of water and how our own strategy theories (the ones used and currently taught) are being affected by our own technology accumulative creations which are disturbing (for worst maybe) the delicate balance of our ecosystems and our survival in the planet. We will use the topic of water to shake your thoughts again.

Philosophy of this saga. Philosophy is the investigation or study of causes and laws underlying a real existence. We philosophy when we inquiry ourselves into the nature of our endeavors by applying logical reasoning rather than empirical methods. Our philosophy for this saga is pivotal to the notion or concept of corporate strategy. We wish to change the corporate strategy’s current conceptualization and formulation as it is taught and applied in business schools and the business world. So, this saga is again fine-tuned to provide a new point of view and analysis of the current fundamental beliefs of what should be the meaning of corporate strategy. We will utilize the variable Water, as our mechanism when it comes to transforming the conceptualization and formulation of strategic agility theory.

In consequence, we will stick to 2 logical reasonings when handling the notion of corporate strategy for the new generations:

1. There is a cause-and-effect relationship between water (as a key element and trouble of humanity) and the dealings of Corporate Strategy as it is defined currently in theory.
2. The role of a business is not to maximize shareholder value, but to protect our human coexistence between our well-being (us as a civilization) and the environment, to promote our humanity and solidarity, to love others as ourselves, and to prevent harm between us in our present and future.

Objectives of “What´s up with water”:

1. To discover what is the state of water on our planet at a macroscopic perceptible level (the big picture).
2. To explore new elements when it comes to theoretical frames of strategy for the new generations to come. Our bottom-line is to link our most crucial troubles or problems on earth with the way we do corporate strategy. For the sake of this saga, we have chosen the issue of water. But in other future sagas, we will select other relevant topics that will impact the next generations.
3. To expose a new approach to teaching corporate strategy at the MBA levels. We have chosen the theory of strategic agility, which is trendy nowadays (if you wish to learn strategic agility at Harvard, you must pay US$10,000 dollars for a virtual online three weeks course).  We want to check if this “agility” recipe that is taught at business schools as “a new manner of decision making” functions or not.
4. To see water as the backbone of our life, not technologies, not NAIQIs, not the ambition of making money for augmenting shareholder value; but by understanding that water is us, and we need to assume it and teach it in business schools. Water matters in everything we do with business.
5. To show you that our theory of integral strategy responds to a whole new experience of understanding and implementing DBR (Design-Based Research) in whatever endeavor we decide to do. In this particular saga, when water is considered.
6. During the first 8 weeks, we yearn to offer you the most simple and ample overview of the state of water. The last 6 weeks will be a review of “strategic agility” which sadly is being used as a corporate strategy feature. The term “strategic agility” has come to confuse corporate strategy, and we wish to explore how to fix this situation, by pouring water into it.
7. To describe what is strategic agility, and how is being currently taught. We will also explore why strategic agility has dreadful drawbacks when we put it at the service of digital transformation using NAIQIs.
8. To find out if strategic agility will help us to fix our environmental issues. Water will be used as an example.
9. To continue supporting hand-made art production using traditional instruments, choosing 26 virtuoso soloists of the violin that can transport us to the water importance in corporate strategy. We expect to choose a mix of violin experienced masters all together with emerging and younger promises. We envision that every time you listen to a good violin in the future, the word “water” will come up to your head so you can remember to pour it into your corporate strategy.
10. After all, to establish a research agenda about water in our corporate strategy domain for the next 15 years.

We have finished our core for today, let´s continue with the strategic music section.

Strategic Music Section:

Songs of today: We will kick off our strategic music section with Ann Sophie Mutter. Two interpretations of her playing a Stradivarius. The first one is The Four Seasons, Summer 3. Presto. From Antonio Vivaldi. This piece of the concert was recorded at Stern Auditorium / Perlman Stage at Carnegie Hall (New York, USA) in 2014. The second oeuvre is “Nice to be around”, under the direction of the composer John Williams conducting the Boston Pops Orchestra. The version of “Nice To Be Around” from the jazz-inflected “Cinderella Liberty” score was performed at the Tanglewood Music Festival 2019. Next week we will reveal why did we choose Ms. Mutter. Enjoy!

See you next Tuesday, with the third episode of “What´s up with water: Pouring water in your corporate strategy”. Thank you for reading to me. Blessings to you.

Disclaimer: Illustrations in Watercolor are painted by Eleonora Escalante. Other types of illustrations or videos (which are not mine) are used for educational purposes ONLY. Nevertheless, most of the pictures, images, or videos shown on this blog are not mine. I do not own any of the lovely photos or images posted unless otherwise stated.

Published by eleonoraescalantestrategy

Corporate Strategy Artist, San Salvador, El Salvador View all posts by eleonoraescalantestrategy