On Wednesday, June 5, the seventh NGO Academy Keynote united more than 120 strategy enthusiasts to get inspired by Martin Kornberger, Professor of Ethics at the Vienna University of Economics and Business, on new ways of strategizing .
The philosopher and award-winning author began his talk by challenging traditional notions of strategic planning, highlighting two contrary schools of thought: One school believes in a stable set of strategic tools. The other end of the spectrum is echoed by Peter Drucker’s famous dictum, “culture eats strategy for breakfast”, this view underscores the dominance of organisational culture over rigid strategic plans. Juxtaposing these two extremes, he set the scene for his intervention: Is there a meaningful way to plan with goal-orientation yet allowing flexibility along the way?
Amidst social transformations, geopolitical turmoil, environmental challenges, technological disruptions and economic shifts, Kornberger noted that strategy has remained largely unchanged – top-down, predictive, linear and communicated through lengthy plans. “We still create and formulate strategies as we did 50 years ago…but the world is a different one”.
A New Language for Strategy
Kornberger proposed a new framework for strategy, centered on three key ideas:
#1 The North Star
Organisations need a general direction to ensure everyone is aligned and understands the purpose behind their actions. This is not a specific goal but a clearly defined guiding principle.
#2 Define your crux
The crux represents the critical, most important point or focus that changes over time. It requires framing, imagining and reframing to address the root causes of the issue or concern that you need to tackle. Strategy is about contextualising rather than merely simplifying them.
#3 Mission-type tactics
We need an agreement on the collective intent (North Star) and the primary obstacle (Crux) whilst providing a distributed set of actors maximum room to maneuver on the ground. This approach allows decentralised decision-making, grants teams maximum flexibility and promotes local experimentation and learning. Drawing from Clausewitz’s military staretegies, Kornberger emphasized a “loosely coupled – highly aligned” organisational design, leading through context rather than control, and fostering a feedback culture.