In the 1980s, Serra found himself in the center of a public controversy over his piece titled Tilted Arc. While it was the government that approached him to create the work for downtown Manhattan’s Federal Plaza, the unveiling of the piece in 1981 was met with sharp criticism. The monumental sculpture was said to disrupt rush hour and the pedestrians who had to cut through the plaza daily. To the dismay of art lovers, the 120-foot-long, 12-foot-tall Tilted Arc was ultimately disassembled in 1989.
We know strategy is an unfolding network of associations:
The evidence from the case suggests that the concept of strategy can be reappraised. From strategy as a static set of choices made at a specific point in time to strategy as an unfolding network of people, shared experiences and artifacts that is constantly being remade.
And we know that only 30% of employees can articulate a company’s strategy.
And I believe in the hyper-connected age we live in both of these things are becoming more true - that strategy is increasingly “in motion” and that most organizations are realizing their OODA loops are too slow for the modern world.
This causes the articulation of strategy to stall and get left behind - how do you articulate something in motion? It’s easier to write strategy down when it doesn’t change right?
As a result - there’s a widening gap between the perspective on strategy that the executive team has and the received ideas of the company’s direction that teams and employees have.