Take the Brakes Off!

Adrian Dignam

Enhancing corporate performance through the application of systems thinking to strategic planning

How can organisational change be transformational when 37 per cent of the expected benefits go ‘missing in action’?

What happens to obstruct the realisation of these benefits, and why?

What are the key leverage points that will reduce friction and get you up to speed?

In Take the Brakes Off, Adrian Dignam explains how organisational performance can be substantially improved through the application of systems thinking to strategic planning, and the operation of the strategic planning system as a dynamic model of the enterprise.

If you’re a CEO, a senior executive or a director, these insights are for you. The opening chapters provide a brief introduction to strategic planning and to systems thinking, and a framework for subsequent discussion of the key behavioural feedback loops that operate to foster – or impede – corporate performance. The conclusions are specific, practical and compelling.

Adrian heads a boutique planning and business development practice based in Sydney. For more than a decade he has specialised in facilitating the introduction of strategic planning systems into organisations of every description across Australia, including many well-known names. He brings to this challenge what few people could – a practical synthesis of strategic planning, systems thinking and project management.

 

About the Author

Adrian Dignam has spent most of his professional career in the planning and business development domain, initially in staff positions with large corporates, then in the Strategic Management practice of a Big 4 global consulting firm, and then as Principal of his own company.  His formal qualifications include an undergraduate degree in Agricultural Science, an MBA from the Australian Graduate School of Management, and Diplomas in Company Directorship and in Project Management.  He has also completed a Mastery in Deep Facilitation workshop to strengthen his understanding of personal and group dynamics.

In the course of his professional career Adrian has worked in most industry sectors, including primary production, mining, and oil and gas;  manufacturing, in its various forms; logistics, utilities, education; and government.   His competencies in the application of planning systems have been developed in and applied to strategic planning, corporate portfolio management, business unit planning, export planning, the commercialisation of innovation, and the corporatisation and privatisation of the public sector.

In 2003 Adrian became Australian agent and facilitator for a highly regarded strategic planning process developed in the UK, and since then has devoted the bulk of his time to introducing effective strategic planning systems and processes into a wide variety of organisations in the public, private and non-profit sectors.

Single-mindedness of purpose is the biggest single advantage that any organisation can have, in facing the future.  And strategic planning provides the greatest opportunity, and the most powerful mechanism, to embed that advantage.  Adrian is in his element, and finds his greatest professional fulfilment, working with teams and individuals in a flexible but systematic way to achieve that high level of alignment and engagement, organisation-wide.  Adrian travels with a client organisation for part of its journey, introducing and applying best practice planning methodologies that distil corporate purpose, clarify the complementary roles of governance board and executive staff, identify and address transformational priorities, and sustain future performance.  In effect he becomes a temporary member of the executive team, and an on-call specialist resource with a rare combination of relevant skills, experience and process knowledge.