Welcome:
The two-day strategic discussion was the culmination of considerable preparation.
It was a pivotal moment for Keystone, bringing together key stakeholders to discuss the company's future direction and create a growth strategy.
The event addressed the central question:
"How do we need to evolve as a business to be equipped and enabled for growth?"
Keystone is perfectly positioned for growth, with a hot market and a scarce resource capable of delivering what no one else can. This program was designed to build the foundations for sustainable growth by ensuring we are enabled and equipped to take advantage of our position, operate most effectively, scale and go to market.
Executive Summary:
What follows is a short introduction and overview of the two days.
At a high level, it covers the logic, gives a sense of what was achieved, and explains what the frameworks covered.
You will see links to the broader aspects of the program, as promised the main session narrative, a thought piece on the category and our initial recommendations of what we think should happen next.
You can also download all of the images contained in this micro-site and the session images themselves in high resolution.
A Background
The challenges for business and society worldwide have become so complex that mankind alone cannot solve them.
Since records began, we’ve designed tools to help us, and most recently, we've unleashed machines built with astonishingly powerful technologies.
We now have techniques so powerful that, in the right hands, they can answer sophisticated challenges that humans simply haven’t been able to solve fully on their own.
The need for appropriate terminology at the frontier of innovation requires us to create new language and categories to describe the techniques and technologies that are reshaping our world.
A Whole New Paradigm. Homo-et-Machina
Resolving deeply hard problems cannot be done by machines alone, as the context in which the challenges exist involves humans.
Keystone is a rare blend of experts and experience, which, together with the quality of our thinking, allows us to solve the most complex problems differently. Therefore, Keystone is a very different kind of organization.
Making A Difference Means Being Different
We bring together the world's best minds.
We’ve assembled a team of human beings advancing computer science, advanced econometrics, and critical thinking–quite literally, changing the world.
At the forefront of advanced technology, this capability is of enormous significance to both business and society.
We are driven by the desire to use this capability to solve massively complicated and critically important challenges.
Core And Context*
To achieve effective and comprehensive problem-solving, it is essential to focus on what is genuinely necessary—the core, while considering the surrounding (highly variable) details that influence or shape the solution—the context.
By distinguishing between core and context, we can prioritize efforts that drive value and innovation while considering the context to ensure the solution is practical, sustainable, and sensitive to external influences.
The idea emerges from various fields of study, primarily computer science, design thinking, and organizational strategy, where it’s pivotal in developing innovative and relevant solutions, products, and strategy.
*The origins of this framework can be found in the work of John Hagel III and John Seely Brown, who introduced the concept in business strategy to help organizations focus on their core competencies while effectively managing the surrounding context.
Digital Transformation
Economics and the role of data in industry changed drastically with the rise of data scientists and machine learning.
In addition to economics and data, the field embraced machine learning, computer vision, natural language processing, statistics and operations research.
Its evolution translated complex business decisions into more data-driven and scientific processes. The business could then focus on higher-value tasks by taking business managers' existing data and models and adding more formal and rigorous modelling around them. In contrast, the models handled more routine, spreadsheet-driven decisions.
A new era has arrived where data science and engineering are applied to complex business problems. A vast market opportunity exists that requires mastery of the details. This requires gradual learning and step-by-step progress based on building trust with business stakeholders.
Welcome to Keystone.
Executive Summary
Before the days, the esellas team undertook considerable work through one-on-one interviews, the survey, the general knowledge shared, and the research gained through the preparatory phase.
The set-up already had three main features as the attendees entered the room.
The Exam Question and Context for Reference
The Conversational Framework - to quickly organize the critical conversations into a sequence of modules—the logical structure and…
The Blueprint is a first-edition hypothetical operational perspective designed to suggest a future with a recognised ‘system of work’ within which everyone can operate and cooperate.
The Order Of Play
Day One:
The day began with introductions; everybody shared their presence, uniqueness, optimism, and curiosity about the days ahead.
The first day of the discussion set the broad context. We needed agreement on the exam question and the identification of clear strategic objectives for the company's future success. We also wanted to discuss the first edition of the operational blueprint and the vision and mission we want to achieve.
Underlying this was the foundational idea of building a durable, purposeful, standalone company, recruiting and retaining top talent, creating an inclusive and supportive environment, and codifying institutional knowledge to support scaling and revenue growth.
We pictured Keystone's vision as a leader in a redefined consulting industry, setting new standards and creating a new category of solutions. Internally, the company would be engineered to achieve that vision, providing excellent opportunities for growth and learning, scale capability without compromising quality, and capture value in its business model.
We began with the exam question and made sure everyone was OK with it and happy to spend the two days interrogating it from several different dimensions.
The Exam Question
“How do we need to evolve as a business to be equipped and enabled for growth?”
Maximizing our revenue potential
Growing our existing practices
Turning advanced technology into an advantage for our clients
Delivering outsized returns for equity and shareholders
Enabled by world-class operations
While preserving the things that make Keystone special and differentiate ourselves from the alternatives.”
The following discussion focused on maximizing revenue potential, growing existing practices, leveraging advanced technology, delivering outsized returns for shareholders, and being enabled by world-class operations while preserving Keystone's unique qualities.
We moved to the central part of the session.
The Conversational Framework:
The conversation began with the end in mind—the team's stated outcomes and intentions. Some already agreed-upon strategic material was already on the wall, and we began to add the team's thoughts.
Key Strategic Objectives:
Build a durable, purposeful, standalone company with a solid culture, well-recognized brand, and systemized processes.
Recruit and retain top talent aligned with Keystone's purpose and intentions.
Create an inclusive, supportive environment that is scalable.
Strengthen processes around recruitment onboarding and broaden diversity.
Codify institutional knowledge and expertise into systems to support scaling.
The System Blueprint:
This was discussed ahead of the vision. We wanted to assure everyone that any vision would need to be backed up by a comprehensive operational system with all the capability and expertise.
This was represented by the toolkits, playbooks, processes, and systems necessary to codify and scale the operation in the short term.
Having the operational capability and system of work in place is not optional if we are to achieve the big prize/goals as stated in the outcome and, in doing so, answer the exam question.
With this in mind, we developed the vision below.
Shaping the Vision:
Our Vision
Making Guesswork History.
We are creating a world without guesswork—solving genuinely important problems. It’s our massively transformative purpose.
We are helping organizations build certainty into their operations. When making big or complex decisions, move beyond risk by relying on intuition, guesswork, and gut feelings.
Keystone envisions a world where its clients are the most efficient, making confident, data-driven decisions by leveraging advanced technologies and decision engineering.
Keystone aims to set new standards in its industry, creating a new category and leading as the most creative, capable, and ever-expanding Expert field.
The company strives to be known as the destination for the world's most talented people and capabilities, transforming businesses and delivering outsized returns for shareholders.
Our Mission
We will be synonymous with high-quality decision-making and problem-solving. This is beyond traditional Consulting and way ahead of the conventional methods and models that solved problems in the past.
Consequently, we are a magnet for the best talent in the world. We provide the leadership, space, and environment to grow future generations of problem solvers for society.
To transform the way organizations make decisions by integrating economics, technology, and business skills to build organizational capability for its clients.
The company aims to solve the most complex problems that others fail to solve, setting new standards in its industry and creating a new category of solutions.
Keystone is committed to preserving its unique qualities while evolving as a business to maximize revenue potential, grow existing practices, and leverage advanced technology.
The company will achieve this by recruiting and retaining top talent aligned with its purpose and intentions, creating an inclusive and supportive environment, and codifying institutional knowledge and expertise into systems to support scaling.
Keystone will continuously strive to capture value in its business model and deliver outsized returns for shareholders, enabled by world-class operations.
Our clients are the most efficient in the world, free from repetitive tasks and making improvements every year through decision engineering.
Keystone sets new standards, creates a new category, and leads as the most creative, capable, and ever-expanding Expert field.
Internally, Keystone provides excellent opportunities for growth and learning, scales capability without compromising quality, and captures value in its business model.
Keystone's Unique Value Proposition:
Matching problems to the right tools to deliver real value, replacing rules of thumb with precision models.
Bringing decision theory to make rational decisions through framing, modelling, testing, and iterating.
Integrating economics, technology, and business skills to build organizational capability for clients.
Delivering long-term contracts for 3-year transformations, building the ‘Transformer’ to give customers what they really need.
The vision was a powerful and inspiring discussion - further outlined below.
Day Two:
The discussion shifted towards aligning priorities.
Participants envisioned a world where Keystone's clients are the most efficient decision-makers, leveraging advanced technologies and decision engineering.
We divided the group into three teams to define priorities and later consolidated them into four enduring themes:
Investing in our future
Having a clear purpose and identity
Making the world aware
Industrializing the operation.
These themes will be the foundation for organizing Keystone's work and initiatives from here on and for at least the next 100 Days.
Throughout both days, meaningful collaboration increased alignment. We concluded with a clearer sense of the strategic direction and a plan to communicate the outcomes to the company at the upcoming firm-wide offsite in May.
It was described as a critical turning point for Keystone, setting the stage for the company's future growth and success by aligning stakeholders around a shared vision, mission, and priorities.
The second day focused entirely on prioritizing the implications and insights from Day One and arranging everything critically essential to achieving our vision, outcomes, and answer to the exam question in some sequence.
The team split into three groups to start considering their priorities more intimately. There was significant overlap and complementarity between each team's priorities. This bodes well for the future as this will become the shared agenda for leadership for the foreseeable future. These priorities are reflected in the first edition of a map that lays out the plan for the leadership team to achieve the outcomes.
Some Of The Next Steps Discussed:
Communicate the strategic discussion outcomes to the company.
Organize work around four enduring themes: Investing in our Future, Clear Purpose and Identity, Making the World Aware, and Industrializing the Operation.
Develop a logical sequence for executing initiatives under each theme.
Prepare for the May firm-wide offsite to share the strategic direction with the entire company.