How Blue Leaders scan their Terrain of Opportunity for Turbulent Change

For Blue Leaders, change is the only constant in the marketplace terrain environment. Blue Leadership is best suited for this era of uncertainty and permanent turbulent change.

Blue Leaders see the marketplace terrain environment as saturated with relevant as well as irrelevant and immaterial variables which have to be grasped, sorted, combined and meaningfully configured for analysis in accordance with systematic risk evaluation protocols. The multivariate marketplace is further complicated by capricious changes from both known and unknown sources. Where business competition is already daunting during relatively stable periods, the uncertain impact from known unknown variables regularly upsets existing competitive relationships to produce the stormy turbulence often described as volatility, uncertainty, complexity and ambiguity (VUCA).

Blue Leadership readily embraces VUCA challenges in the search for alternative sustainable solutions. The first step in Blue Leadership decision-making is to be agile by continuously scanning and capturing sufficient but adequate relevant material variables in his Terrain of Opportunity for processing, configuring and developing feasible viable scenarios.

The Blue Leader conceives a unique Terrain of Opportunity Schema as the Framework for strategic and operational analysis. The Terrain of Opportunity provides the battlefield context for Blue Leadership. Blue Leaders continually perfect the Art of Blue Leadership as they sense, navigate and execute strategic moves in anticipation and response to uncertainty and permanent turbulent changes in the Terrain Vectors.

The Terrain Vectors are configured as Shape, Structure, Hazards, Psychometrics, Rules and Value. Together, the confluence of their numerous combinations embodies and defines the dynamic situational and contingent character of the Terrain itself.

The Terrain of Opportunity is the natural operational arena of the Blue Leader. It also provides the framework for his strategic scanning, analysis and decision-making. In his pursuit of business and organizational excellence, the Blue Leader visualizes and envisages his Terrain of Opportunity according to the following diagram:

[1] Shape

Refers to the numerous product and services in the Marketplaces. Blue Leaders understand the distinctions between substitute and alternative products. Bloody market competition happens between substitutes, not alternatives. There are just too many marketing communications battles designed against both substitutes and alternatives alike. Such marketing efforts increase wasteful costs and distract as well as diffuse buyers’ attention. Another key is “know your true competitors”. Competitors would know each other personally and intimately. The basic competitors test is simple: “if your presumed competitor does not know you exist, you are not his competitor, even if you had benchmarked him to be yours”.

[2] Structure

Refers to the actors, players — people — and landmarks in your Terrain of Opportunity. Landmarks are strong brands that act often as surrogates for their owners and players. It includes important stakeholders such as the community, suppliers, employees and human climate. People include inventors, designers, entrepreneurs, managers, executives, workers, service providers, shareholders, funders, buyers (+family and friends), non-buyers and the internet.

[3] Hazards

Refers to the physical and psychological obstacles, barriers and inconveniences to a more fulfilling and satisfying buyer experience. Also include environmental concerns. The cost of market entry is a huge factor in determining choice options for buyers but high entry costs would also spur introduction of alternative products and services. Technology is both a facilitator and obstacle to the total consumption experience to the extent of its requirements of computer knowledge, access devices, compliance rules, registration, anonymity and privacy considerations.

[4] Psychometrics

Refers to the customer’s experience; buyers’ preference and psycho-emotional desires derived from their use of your products, including cultural factors. Includes influencers, opinion leaders, media, researchers and lifestyle shapers. They indicate, measure and influence buyer decisions. The impact of marketing communications in their battles for positional advantages is a key consideration here.

[5] Rules

Refers to applicable laws, regulations and norms relating to the products and services. Include power brokers, politicians, regulators, enforcers, lawyers, judges, religious minders and advocates. Include corrupt practices. They tend to be common to most if not all buyers, and are relevant and material to the extent that they affect buyers differently and between them.

[6] Value

Often conflated with price, which is merely a surrogate for perceived value. A price level is acceptable and tolerated as long as the price lags behind the corresponding perceived value. True value is often distorted by the market forces of demand and supply. The Psychometric Vector is often biased and allocate much undeserved weightage to tangible, luxurious and superficial features of products and services. Blue Leaders see through the lenses of their 4 Passions to confer true sustainable value on their products and services.

The 6 Terrain Vectors are correlated. They also influence each other by a matter of degree. Immediately, they would produce 46,656 (=6 to the 6th power) basic patterns or combinations at the initial get-go snapshots. These combinations also increase exponentially when the relevant elements within each Vector are captured, selected, consolidated and factored into possible scenarios for actionable consideration. The strategic choices generated are tremendously astounding.

The Terrain Vectors affect each other to some limited manner in their interplay and interaction as they influence and blend in the minds of buyers and non-buyers as well as the major actors in the socio-political economic marketplace and produce possible scenarios for strategic decisions.

Blue Leaders use Mindfulness to overlay the Terrain Map to provide a “sense” of the turbulent change in real time. Mindfulness is the Capacility [capacity+capability] to capture holistically the authentic pattern(s) of changing social realities. Mindfulness self-mastery in Blue Leaders imbues in them the consciousness of action through sense-making. It emboldens and empowers profoundly insightful reflection to inform fearless engagement and innovative decision-making.

Instead of trying to predict the future using failed conventional models, organizations must strengthen their capacility to engage effectively with VUCA. They need Blue Leadership with its unique approach to terrain scanning and strategy formulation so as to empower companies reframe their long-term survival strategies by developing Blue Solutions from several plausible realistic scenarios.

Mindfulness in Blue Leaders strengthens their prediction confidence on the most likely patterns of future social reality amidst turbulent change to visualize meaningful coherence of the emergent trends in their Terrain(s) of Opportunity. They weigh the longer-term risks of the possible robust solutions needed to transform their business in successful change response.

Blue Leaders understand that many organisations have failed to navigate victoriously through the permanent turbulence in their terrain(s) of opportunity due to 2 major reasons; namely their inability to escape the past, and/or their inability to invent their future. The Way of Blue Leaders provides the disciplined method for effective and successful navigation through the uncertainty of permanent turbulence change.

Blue leaders use their various Terrain Maps to capture the turbulent dynamism of the 6 Terrain Vectors as they build and develop the respective strategic narratives for specific re-combinations of the Vectors to engage the VUCA challenges in the global business environment. The significance of the Terrain Vectors to the decision-making process in Blue Leaders depend on the maturity level of their mastery in the Art of Blue Leadership as it emboldens their action decisions in strategy formulation.

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.