Strategy without a Plan? - How to Thrive in Unpredictable Times

Strategy without a Plan?

Geopolitical turmoil, technological disruptions, societal changes, and environmental challenges characterise our times as polycrisis. In the face of such radical uncertainty, business and civil society leaders are faced with the key challenge of thinking and acting strategically without being able to plan, let alone predict, the future. In this keynote, Martin Kornberger addresses this challenge and outlines how one can create a strategy that is both collective and goal-directed while remaining flexible and agile.

Based on research into professional sailing sport, military and business strategy, he will introduce conceptual tools that allow leaders to strategise without planning. A mindset based on decentralised and local action and experimentation should be our new mantra.

Martin Kornberger is a Professor for Ethics at the Vienna University of Economics and Business, a Visiting Professor at Stockholm School of Economics and Adjunct Professor at University of New South Wales in Sydney, Australia. His work has been published across a range of disciplines including management and organization theory (Academy of Management Discoveries), strategy (Long Range Planning) and sociology (Sociological Review). He writes textbooks and monographs, most recently, Strategies for Distributed and Collective Action: Connecting the Dots (Oxford University Press, 2022) and Systemaufbruch – Strategie in Zeiten radikaler Unsicherheit (Murmann, 2023).