Equip to Win with the 4 Action Trigons of Blue Leadership Strategy

Blue Leaders are Action-oriented, driven by his 4 passions, as they envisage the many possible futures unpacked by the permanent turbulent mutations in the Terrain of Opportunity. Change is the only constancy in the business and eco-social environment.

To the Blue Leader, the future is what is happening and not what will happen. And the “long-term” is not something that will happen one day. The “long-term” refers to the patterns of possible futures that he plans strategically to achieve by dealing with the hazards and obstacles in the Terrain of Opportunity blocking the outcomes of harmony and happiness in personal, social and community life.

A unique Blue Strategy empowers the Blue Leader to create exceptional marketplace victories without engaging in bloody competitive actions. The goal of Blue Strategy is to become “Different from The Rest” instead of “Better Than The Best”.

The actions of Blue Strategies therefore do not target change itself but the dynamism of capricious Vectors in the Terrain of Opportunity. Blue Leaders seek, reflect and locate the genesis of change in the specific material Terrain Vectors. The only decisive response to opportunistic turbulent change is to reinvent its Blue Leadership continuously so as to reimagine, reconfigure, recalibrate and reframe its strategic moves without adherence or conformance to any particular management ideology, known models and successful legacy solutions.

The synthesis of timeless-ness and formless-ness in the Mindfulness of Blue Leaders unleashes creative consequences and possibilities from the trending captured as they happen in the Terrain of Opportunity. Reflective and reflexive learning emboldens, excites and accelerates the creative energy flow in Blue Leaders to generate the necessary innovative, unusual, unfamiliar and uncommon intelligent change management response.

The Strategy of Blue Leadership directs the thrust of change efforts to create and evolve a corporate culture with the discipline of continuous learning and innovation, and where permanent change has become a way of life. It challenges organisational performance to embrace the emergent social realities of uncertainty and permanent turbulence. Blue Strategies provide the playbook for a complete, patterned response to the management of business excellence as well as the socio-psychological stress, dissonance and disequilibrium engendered in this era of uncertainty and permanent turbulent change. The successful management of change by visionary Blue Leadership instils confidence and a sense of direction out of the chaotic turbulence to bring about a new social cultural order and purposeful equilibrium within the organisation.

Blue Leaders develop a 9 Actions Framework to operate as their sense-making frame for continuous reality-learning. The Focal Action of Strategy is driven by the Blue Leader’s Passion for Strategy, and it sits front and centre as the unshakeable polestar visionary purpose of Blue Leadership.

The Action Cornerstones of Blue Leadership have the Actions of Society, People, Stakeholders and Analytics as their core fascinations. They are the initial action triggers as Blue Leaders embark on the expeditionary journey into the Terrain of Opportunity. Analytics actions are programs for factual discovery involving identifying, gathering and analysing all types of data and information that are adjudged by Blue Leaders to be material and relevant from Stakeholders (employees, vendors, customers, regulators and shareholders), People (non-buyers, service providers, stakeholders’ families, influencers and opinion makers) and Society (environment, community, associations, power groups and their enforcers, interests groups and the general public).

The Action Cornerstones of Stakeholders, People, Society and Analytics are firmly supported by the Action Pillars of Leading, Systems, Markets and Learning. Together, the Cornerstone and Pillar Actions establish the basic constitution of the Blue Actions Framework which identifies, distinguishes and characterises Blue Leadership. Through their behaviors in the dynamic pathways of the 9 Actions Framework, Blue Leaders are identified and recognised.

Each Action Cornerstone develops affinity and synergises with 2 Action Pillars to create Action Trigons in a continuous learning response to Terrain Vector changes perceived by the conscious unconscious Mindfulness of the Blue Leader to embolden and enhance the Capacility of Blue Leadership.

The 9 Actions of Blue Leadership are “weaponised” as Action Trigons for the execution of Blue Strategy. Blue Leadership behaviors are better understood by the performance impact achieved by their Action Trigons.

Each Action Trigon is the pivot on a Cornerstone Action in its affinity with 2 Pillar Actions. The Strategic Purpose of Blue Leadership is driven and executed by the other 8 Action Paths which organised themselves into 4 Action Trigons each composing 3 Actions. There are 4 Action Trigons; namely Data, Transform, Impact and Feedback.

The Action Trigons synergised when the Pillar Actions become Trigon linchpins as they interact and interplay to assure the integration, coherence and alignment of Strategy during their single-minded expedition through the Terrain of Opportunity. Together in action, they generate the sustainable motivational energy for the dynamism of formless Blue Leadership in the execution of strategic moves throughout the 9 Actions Framework.

What are the Strategic Moves of Action Trigons?

The Action Trigons are briefly described in this section.

1) The Data Trigon [Analytics, Systems, Markets]

The Data Trigon pivots on factual discovery actions involving identifying, gathering and analysing all types of data and information from the Terrain of Opportunity to produce multiple usable multimetric analysis.

Systems are leading actions in the never-ending creation, recreation and alignment of the appropriate organisational forms, structures, systems and processes. Systems actions also design and deploy apps to leverage and maximise advantages unleashed by the Internet of Things (IoT). Markets actions aim at embodying real value into desirable products and services (research, innovations, design thinking, fabrication) and translate marketing efforts into sales revenue at affordable prices. Psychometrics in the Terrain are critical inputs to the Data Trigon through the interplay of Systems and marketing communications.

2) The Transform Trigon [Leading, People, Systems]

The Transform Trigon pivots on the creative production of purposeful actions from people and organisations. Leading actions also involve visioning, visualising strategy and inspiring, motivating, developing, supporting, rewarding, engaging and empowering People, promote decent work as well as mobilising the critical resources (including funds, alliances, partnerships) for the necessary Systems actions to execute Strategy successfully.

3) The Impact Trigon [Society, Learning, Markets]

The formless nature of Blue Strategy involves continuous learning (formal, informal, co-operative, mentoring, coaching, neurolingistic programming) from the Society and Markets actions in the Terrain of Opportunity. The Impact Trigon pivots on the delivery of abundant physical satisfaction and greater access to the opportunities of happiness through Society actions (corporate social responsibility and balancing profits, people & planet).

Unique Blue Leadership obtains impactful outcomes through empowerment of effective relationship management in Markets actions. The pivot of Impact is powered by the actions of adaptive systems and flexible structures meeting the demands of Society and Markets actions.

4) The Feedback Trigon [Stakeholders, Leading, Learning]

Blue Leadership strategy is informed by multiple multimetric analytics from various stakeholders and other sources as harvested by the Data Trigon. Leading actions are based on facts, knowledge, learning and grounded information. Stakeholders actions involve conversations, participation, co-investments, responsibility, partnerships and ethical behaviors.

Flexible organisational structures supported by adaptive systems are thereafter designed and developed to support value-laden innovations to address emergent and new blue markets validated by factual feedback from dynamic multi-variables in the Terrain of Opportunity. The formless essence of Blue Strategy feeds on a never-ceasing diet of continuous learning empowered by immanent aspirations and expectations of various stakeholders in interaction with the environment of the Terrain of Opportunity.

Dynamism of Formless Blue Strategy

The 9 Actions Framework provides the sensemaking frame for Blue Strategy. It materialises the Way [Dao] of Blue Leadership for the planning, formulation, execution and evaluation of Blue Strategy. When fully installed and implemented, the Framework has the 9 essential DNA building blocks of a living Blue Organisation led by Blue Leadership at all levels to assure sustainability for the existential survival of lasting Blue Organisations.

The playbook of Blue Strategy compiles and encapsulates the dynamism of Action Trigons. The dynamism of Action Trigons spawn numerous material combinations in the patterns of Blue Strategy. The first strategic pattern is a single Blue Strategy consisting of 9 strategic Blue Action moves of the Pathway consistent and aligned with one another. There are therefore 81 possible strategic positions at the outset of Blue Strategy as choice options for the first strategic move.

Mathematically, there are 136,048,896 possible strategic pattern combinations of Blue Strategy for the first consideration before any specific formulation. When factored in the 6 specific Vectors in any Terrain of Opportunity, Blue Leaders would have 4,897,760,256 material strategic combinations available in his initial strategic choice matrix.

Upon commencement of strategy, responses from other actors and players in the same Terrain of Opportunity can be expected to be immediate and swift. And the actions by Blue Leaders in response to these countermoves to their initial Blue Strategic move would generate a choice of any combination(s) from 2.39x10(to the 19th power) possible strategic patterns! This is just at the beginning of the strategy formulation cycle.

Such awesome transmutation of Blue Strategy represents the absolute formless-ness of Blue Leadership. The possibilities of strategic moves and the variations of strategic pattern are however finite and knowable, and hence can be learnt.

Look at the game of Chess as an imperfect comparision. In Chess, only one piece is moved at any time. In Blue Leadership, each strategic move consists of at least one move by each Action within each of the 4 respective Action Trigons. In the real world, many initiatives or moves actually take place in each of the 9 Actions.

In a Chess game, the number of possible chess positions for the first White move is 20 (16 pawn moves and 4 knight moves). There are 400 possible chess positions or board patterns after the pair of first White move and the first Black move in response. And after the 2nd Black move, there are 197,742 possible games or board patterns, and after three pairs of moves, 121 million. Some have estimated the possible number of Chess game patterns to be around 10,100,000. Of these, 10,120 Chess games are believed to be “typical”, with each game lasting about 40 moves “long” with an average of 30 choices per move.

When compared with Chess, Blue Strategy is indeed more complex and complicated. Blue Leaders can therefore play Chess as a form of mental practice for formless Strategy, even though the Chessboard is clearly not an authentic depiction of the actual Terrain of Opportunity.

The simple elegance of Blue Strategy lies in its basic structure grounded in the 9 Actions Framework hinged at the hub of Strategic Purpose [万变不离其宗]. The Passions of Blue Leaders facilitate insightful visions and The Way’s discipline and mindfulness of Timelessness, Formlessness and Intelligent guarantee the instinctive execution of Blue Strategy to great effect for truly outstanding exceptional impact.

LOOK AROUND YOU. Have you encountered any Blue Leaders?

The Blue Leader can be spotted by the following behaviors:

· He/she constantly demonstrates all 4 passions in his decisions and actions.

· He/she is conscious of the ideology and personal values driving his passions.

· He/she is a continuous learner and encourages his people to be one.

· He/she is dedicated to decisions and actions across all 9 pathways.

· He/she promotes and executes the Blue Strategy to be “Different from the Rest”.

· He/she develops everyone to become a Blue Leader.

Future Articles shall elaborate further on the emergent Blue Leadership for this era of uncertainty and permanent turbulent change. Follow me.