Blue ocean leadership grid

I have talked about the Blue Ocean Strategy before (here). But for those who don't remember, this is a strategy where we “create uncontested market space [which makes] the competition irrelevant” (Kim & Mauborgne, 2004, p. 77). This is where a red ocean is “all the industries in existence today - the known market space” (p. 77), and a blue ocean is “all the industries not in existence today - the unknown market space, untainted by competition” (p. 77).

However, there is a useful punnet chart, called the blue ocean leadership grid, which Kim and Mauborgne (2014) developed to help users of the blue ocean strategy to analyse which acts and activities the organisation should do less of (because they hold people back), and which they should do more of (because they are inspirational).

There are four categories for us to use as lenses for analysing actions (Kim & Mauborgne, 2014, p. 65): 

• Eliminate. We eliminate those activities which don’t add value or competitive advantage. Ruthlessly. Like PR statements. 
• Raise. We raise those activities which do add value and competitive advantage. Like strategic planning. 
• Reduce. We reduce those things that are done too much. Like reporting for the sake of reporting. 
• Create. We create those activities which aren’t done, but should be. Like talking to frontline staff. All the time. 

Not only can we consider tasks which the organisation does, we can also analyse job descriptions and leadership functions throughout the organisation. 

We can collectively consider what our organisational leaders do in their job descriptions, and - therefore - which tasks are seen to actually add value. We check in with what all our people want to see our leaders doing, along with new activities that the team believe would add a lot of value if leaders started doing them. These are analysed using the four grid categories in the diagram above. Then the firm can use the results from the grid analysis to work through the tasks - and to hopefully end up with more effective leadership and leaders (Kim & Mauborgne, 2014).

Sam

References:

Kim, W. C. & Mauborgne, R. (2004). Blue Ocean Strategy. Harvard Business Review, 82(10), 76-84.

Kim, W. C., & Mauborgne, R. (2014). Blue Ocean Leadership. Harvard Business Review, 92(5), 60-68.