The Stratworth Creative & Unconventional Strategies Lab (CUS) helps firms collaboratively identify what’s next in their industries/domains and craft the most compelling, creative and unconventional strategies to get there. At the CUS Lab, sessions may be initiated internally, by the in-house CUS Lab team or may be initiated externally at the request of organizations.

While a diverse array of cutting-edge strategy frameworks, tools and experimental techniques are deployed during sessions at the CUS Lab, the uniqueness and the unparalleled edge of our strategy initiatives and outcomes is based on our novel ‘Strategy-Evolving-Recipe” approach that is currently patent pending.

We are interested in hearing from organizations that are ambitious, looking to gain a competitive edge through the design of creative unconventional strategy ideas, options & solutions.

To participate in the Stratworth CUS Lab program, please reach out to: labs@stratworthuniversity.org

Ignite the spark to solve your organization’s intractable strategic issues

Duration: 4 days across 4 months

Time commitment: Short Sprint Program

Location: Hybrid

What We Do

Existential problems are present in almost all industries and as such, periodically affects constituent organizations. But where do you go for solutions to novel, unprecedented and intractable challenges in a complex and dynamic environment?

We are of the conviction that there are two potential and plausible locations where solutions to your organization's most difficult and seemingly unsolvable problems can be found: first, from the diverse, often unusual and seemingly unrelated bodies of knowledge (management science, philosophy, biology, psychology, neuroscience etc.) uniquely available and exclusively brought together at Stratworth University - the world’s leading strategy institution, and secondly, within your own company. Based on this belief, we developed Stratworth Systemic Organizational Unsolvables Lab (Stratworth SOUL), a customized co-creative strategy development and solutions sprint that fuses the two in order to ignite that crucial spark that not only helps surmount your hitherto intractable strategy issues, but that fights for the very soul of your organization.

What We Offer

Creating strategic clarity for strategic leadership

Stratworth University exists to provide the most profound strategy executive education; Stratworth Strategy Consulting exists to assist leaders in addressing the most complex strategic problems; Stratworth Center for Research in Business Strategy (Stratworth CRIBS) provides and curates the cutting edge research that our solutions across units depend on. At Stratworth Strategy Labs, we help strategic leaders think much more clearly in a co-creative atmosphere. That’s why for the Stratworth SOUL customized program, we have merged resources from all four units to provide a bespoke and unparallelled offering for a select group of clients. This unique offering incorporates the following two core value propositions:

• Foresight-engendered Clarity

Stratworth Strategy Labs, a part of Stratworth University, offers cutting-edge ‘Stratworth thinking’ hinged on our depth of understanding of industries and their dynamics as well as data-driven predictive insights from cutting-edge strategic foresight research generated internally at its center for research in business strategy, and externally, through access to and the meticulous curation of strategy research from both practitioner research streams as well as academic research streams. A growing number of strategy teams have utilized our research and in-depth knowledge to increase their grasp of, and prediction of the complex strategic challenges affecting them and their organizations. For Stratworth SOUL, we dug far into the University’s collective cognition, gathering knowledge from many different disciplines on how real systemic change can be sparked and engendered—with a majority of these insights and information never before applied to the corporate sector.

• Competence-engendered Clarity

Stratworth Strategy Consulting facilitates transformation in senior strategy teams across industries and regions. Through the adoption of mindset coaching for optimal imagination and creativity and the transfer of practical strategy skill-sets, its distinctive strategy consulting and facilitation programs give CEOs and Boards clarity. Through this approach, strategy leaders expand their already exceptional capacity for telling and perceiving with a newly deepened capacity for inquiring — to listen and hear strategically like never before, and to uncover and maximize the creative and imaginative potential of their strategy teams.

Our Approach

We work with you to weave these two core value propositions into the very fabric of your organization through an approach that stretches your strategy skill-sets and provokes your mind to think deeper strategically than it has ever done before, in order to address the most difficult, systemic problems your organization faces:

• Stratworth Strategy Insights

First, we provide program participants (a group of senior executives at your organization) with condensed insights from top Stratworth University professors, offering cutting-edge thinking on how to drive systemic change. These insights are delivered not as traditional lectures, but are packaged as condensed bites of human and web-based content.

• Stratworth Strategic Thinking Untethered

Next, the acclaimed training faculty at Stratworth Strategy Consulting will deliver a unique edition of the revolutionary ‘Untethered’ strategy development immersive experience for a select number of the organization's leaders. The voluntary members of your team who participate in the program gain elite strategy coaching skills, through a session that equips them by giving them room to think strategically by themselves and are able to provide such space to others within the organization. However, that increased power to think strategically serves purposes far beyond itself. As strategic creativity and thinking capability increases throughout the program, it is then channeled as new fuel to power work on the systemic problem the organization wants to solve as insights from stratworth foresight and thinking interjectionally supplies new unconventional perspectives along the way. Thus, over the course of four months, the team develops new strategic thinking, leadership mindsets and skill sets, resulting in a new organizational competence to accurately diagnose, analyze and begin to solve its own most profound systemic issues, with the assurance that these new competence resides within its own team.

Evaluating Success

We are constantly interested in learning about and measuring the tangible and intangible effects of our work, especially the value we have generated for our clients. To do this, we collaborate with each client firm to co-create a thorough and customized impact assessment, evaluating return on investment (ROI) in concrete figures.

So What Next?

Stratworth SOUL is a program for a group of senior executives responsible for or involved in setting the strategic direction or solving strategic issues within an organization, and to help you decide if Stratworth SOUL is the appropriate fit for your organization, we advise that you take the following questions into account:

• What is the most important ‘systemic challenge’ that needs to be resolved (for example, how to change our company in the face of disruption)?

• What senior executive member of the Board might sponsor our participation in the Stratworth SOUL program? (This preferably should be the CEO, Managing Partner, and/or Chair)

• What number of top management team members are we hoping to enroll into the program. (Preferably a small groups of about six TMT members each)

• What is our allocated budget for the program?

• When do we hope to start the Stratworth SOUL programme?

We are interested in hearing from organizations that are ambitious, looking to gain a competitive edge through their strategic thinking and strategic leadership capabilities, and are currently dealing with systemic problems that have so far been resistant to change.

To participate in the Stratworth SOUL program, please reach out to: labs@stratworthuniversity.org

Experimentation and discovery is at the heart of the Stratworth Collaborative Network Strategy Lab.

Duration: Approximately 6 lab sessions across 6 months

Time commitment: Short Program

Location: Hybrid

About the Lab

In order to create an experimental strategy lab for inter and intra-industry strategic discovery, Stratworth University is building on its strategy research and practice in generating collaborative strategy, developing novel and enhanced partnerships in dynamic contexts, organizational identity, and strategic foresight.

The goal of the Stratworth CNS Lab is to give networks of organizations within or across industries a creative setting and space in which to collaborate and strategize, assisting them in crafting and laying out a creative, innovative and productive strategic path for a future that each individual organization could not achieve on their own.

Who the Stratworth CNS Lab is for

The lab is for networks of firms that currently collaborate or seek to strategize for their industries collaboratively.

Our preferred terminology to describe these networks is ‘meta-organizations’ - a phrase widely used to describe arrangements made up of non-competing organizations working and strategizing together rather than individuals.

Meta-strategizing can take place in entrenched organized networks, semi-structured groupings like intricate joint ventures, as well as loosely-held organizations like movements.

The number of participants for a Stratworth CNS lab session varies greatly depending on the network type and collaborative intent. We hold sessions for network groups with as few as 5 organizations and as many as 50 organizations. Each lab session is strictly confidential and firms will be carefully selected to ensure that no competing firms are included.

Stratworth CNS Lab Outcomes for Participants

Following the lab, participants will:

• develop fresh perspectives of plausible scenarios and strategic paths

• develop new strategic opportunities and choices that may be used to take action.

• create new connections with people inside the network as well as relevant others outside it

• acquire a novel approach for collectively collaborating on strategy.

Finally, one key lesson participants will take away from the lab session is the newly developed experimenting behavior and capability.

How the Stratworth CNS Lab Works

Every edition of the lab is tailored to the unique and distinct goals and needs of the specific group of participating organizations.

The Stratworth Collaborative Network Strategy Lab can be completed online, or in-person at Stratworth University facilities or a mutually agreed upon location (or using a hybrid format).

The agenda for each lab is jointly developed by the collaborating organizations, and it is run for a period of time sufficiently suited to the goals needed to be achieved.

Most Stratworth CNS lab editions are conducted in the following five stages:

1. Lab set-up

2. Identifying and investigating theoretical and contextual frameworks of the future

3. Mapping and role-playing scenarios, extant and novel potential strategic possibilities and options

4. Gathering and translating lab findings into actionable practice

5. Review of drawn conclusions and follow-up sessions.

We are interested in hearing from organized networks and organizations seeking to initiate one; that are ambitious and looking to gain strategic clarity and forge a strategic path for the future of their industries and eco-systems.

To initiate a Stratworth Collaborative and Network Strategy Lab session for your network, please reach out to: labs@stratworthuniversity.org

Taking on wicked problems through an accelerated systems change sprint workshop

Duration: Usually a 4-Day Sprint

Time commitment: Short Sprint Program

Location: Hybrid

Wicked Problems Resist Traditional Solutions

Environmental degradation, climate change, sustainability, global and regional conflict & drought.

These are some of the most pressing, unsolvable issues of our day; these are the issues that dominate the agendas of governments, corporations, nongovernmental organizations, and international organizations. Since these problems are not amenable to traditional problem solving processes, system changes are necessary.

Stratworth University through its Stratworth Systemic Wicked Problems Solutions Lab (Stratworth SWiPS) has created an accelerated and expedited workshop platform that builds on the sprint model first popularized by the high-tech sector to hasten innovation processes that result in systemic change.

The Stratworth SWiPS Approach

At Stratworth SWiPS our approach combines the speed and flexibility of a sprint process with the rigor of academic research. We bring together leaders from diverse disciplines to quickly address wicked problems. Participants are motivated to challenge conventional wisdom and traditional assumptions, think broadly, act rapidly, and, distinctively take advantage of Stratworth University’s research and problem solving expertise as they examine possible levers for systems change.

Beyond the generation of new strategic ideas and perspective, this highly experiential and interactive sprint leaves participants with concrete actionable suggestions and roadmaps for improving the mechanisms that address the wicked problem, irrespective of whether such wicked problems emanate from corporate, government, or societal domains.

How it Works

Each SWiPS edition is a customized sprint workshop tailored to deal with a singular Wicked Problem.

It assembles relevant and often multidisciplinary experts, specialists and stakeholders under one roof and engenders the investigation and crafting of appropriate routes for system change and reform to tackle the wicked problem at hand. Participants interactively develop potential solutions through a process that includes designing, testing, and iteration while taking advantage of the skills and expertise of Stratworth University’s researchers and Stratworth Strategy Consulting’s experts.

The Process Prioritizes:

• Multi-sector and multi-disciplinary collaboration that engages a variety of stakeholders from academia, government, and industry in in-depth, unconventional, creative and strategic thinking.

• Fast-paced and agile process that draws from and expands upon the concepts of design thinking and lean approaches.

• Rigorous academic interrogation that challenges assumptions, sparks discussion, and challenges stakeholders to think and act differently. Scholarly papers and recent research might be infused to help drive conversations.

• Practical, actionable and ready to implement recommendations which involves rigorous and thorough evaluation and strategic adjustments of prototypes to create potent strategic solutions for prompt implementation.

The Stratworth SWiPS Difference

We design our sprint workshops to efficiently diagnose, reframe, and address wicked challenges. This allows us to solve wicked problems that may seem unsolvable at scale. We challenge participating teams to go beyond the analysis of problems and provide them with the resources to look for actual actionable solutions and solution options.

Stratworth SWiPS Lab, through Stratworth University, has access to networks of recognized industry specialists, domain experts, research centers, and professors at the cutting edge of their scholarly domains. As a result, we bring together thought leaders, practitioners, and industry professionals from each facet of value chains and ecosystems to tackle a wicked problem. We may curate and selectively invite experts who will enlighten, motivate and stir our participants to heightened levels of strategic imagining and thinking in order to generate unconventional, ground-breaking and game-changing ideas.

To foster fresh and novel thinking and to engender actionable and practical solutions, we designed a bespoke experimental lab space and a cutting-edge learning environment. These enable us to inspire participants to be creative, promote participant cooperation and collaboration through the cross-fertilization of ideas and support an environment where entrepreneurial mindsets flourish.

We are interested in hearing from organizations and think-tanks seeking to initiate a wicked problems solutions lab irrespective of whether such organizations and the wicke problems they seek to address emanate from the corporate, government or non-governmental domains.

To initiate a Stratworth Systemic Wicked Problems Solution Lab session for your organization or think tank, please reach out to:

labs@stratworthuniversity.org