Chapter 10
The Journal of Strategic Reflections

This chapter is quite short, as it is somewhat the eye of the hurricane of this book. In a way, all the subjects dealt with in the other chapters revolve around the journal of strategic reflections, which is the keystone of the system we propose. However, we have chosen not to repeat here what has been seen in the other chapters, and as a result, this chapter at the center of the book is not understandable without having read the whole book.

Operation of the Journal of Strategic Reflections

Content

Each entry in the journal of strategic reflections indicates:
Who, When, and What strategic question is raised.
Then comes a motivated description of the means allocated to answer the question.
Then, the content of the study itself, with its analysis section, followed by its conclusions and recommendations.
Finally, a report on the implementation of the conclusions.
And possibly, as a supplement, a methodological assessment of the study's quality.

Here are some examples of strategic questions:
Our premises are poorly adapted and cause recurring problems: should we move or carry out works? Which ones?
Should we change our computer system, which causes recurring problems such as...?
We are becoming too large: should we outsource part of our activity, and which one, or should we split up, and how?
For an organization in charge of regional development:
How to ensure our independence in basic food products?
Carry out an audit of our waste cycle. What transformations should be made in production and distribution to limit waste generation at the source?
Study the particular journey of a few young people who have fallen out of the system. Is the support that has been put in place appropriate?

Creation of an Entry

Any person in the organization can decide to open a new entry in the journal of strategic reflections, in order to submit a question.
In addition, the president is responsible for periodically conducting surveys in the journal of problems to identify recurring issues, and possibly deduce strategic questions that could address these problems with more height, more resources, and therefore more relevance.
We have also seen in the previous chapter that a disagreement among the people involved in solving an entry in the journal of problems often leads to the creation of an entry in the journal of strategic reflections, to carry out a study that will arbitrate the disagreement.
Finally, we will see in the next chapter that auditors carrying out an operational audit may decide to add new entries to the journal of strategic reflections, and possibly set the corresponding study resources.

Allocation of Resources

The president completes the 'Resources Allocated' section for each entry in the journal of strategic questions, deciding its content, and specifying to whom the study is assigned. Both decisions must be justified.
The people involved in the study can be the president himself, members of the organization, or external persons. The president decides this, and he must assign the study to one or more persons whose strategic rating is in line with the stakes linked to the strategic question. The president is also required to allocate some less important studies to less experienced persons, i.e., with a lower strategic rating, both internal and external to the company, in order to allow all citizens to be periodically evaluated.

This point is very important. In a society that has become extremely complex, true democracy is no longer just the fact that everyone votes, because the effort to study the question is too low to not become the plaything of targeted and demagogic information using cognitive dissonance to pervert the system. The 2016 Brexit in the United Kingdom is the perfect illustration. True democracy lies in the fact that all citizens are periodically required to carry out strategic studies in the interest of all, and are expected to gradually demonstrate their ability at this level. Put differently, in a society that is very technologically advanced, the issue is no longer so much to protect the homeland against external invasions via regular military periods in the Swiss model, but to protect society against the erosion of trust, via the periodic involvement of all citizens in the collective decision-making system, which is no longer external and political, but integrated into the production system. The strategic rating assigned to each citizen reflects this new organization of decision-making power.

Process of the Study

Then comes the study, signed by a main author, who engages their credibility, and will be evaluated with procedures that we will see in chapter 11, with the main effect of making their strategic rating evolve.
The study consists of an analysis section, followed by a section of conclusions and recommendations.
It also necessarily includes a section 'Global, Long-Term Effects' and a section 'Reduction of Future Margins of Maneuver of the Organization'.

Validation

The president validates the conclusions, or motivates their rejection and allocates new resources for a new study on the same question.

From the above, we can notice that certain entries in the journal of strategic reflections, may have been created by the president, allocated to him by himself, and finally validated by him again. Therefore, there is a risk of a hegemonic president.
In the long term, the counter-power is the operational audit, which performs the methodological evaluation of the strategic studies, including those conducted by the president himself, and may, in case of serious mismanagement, go as far as to remove the president.
In the short term, if a person in the organization does not agree with the validation decision made by the president, they can carry out and propose a counter-study leading to different recommendations. Obviously, this counter-study may concern only part of the initial study, and the recommendations may be simply complementary or suggest minor adjustments.
The president can first decide to validate the counter-study. On the other hand, if he rejects its content, it is the strategic rating that determines the outcome. If the president's strategic rating is higher than that of the person who conducted the counter-study, the rejection is validated. Conversely, if the person who conducted the counter-study has a higher strategic rating than the president, then a neutral third-party person from an external organization will make the arbitration, i.e., will validate or not validate the counter-study and its conclusions. This third party must have a strategic rating at least equal to that of the president.

Let us recall at this stage that the organization's president is elected, according to the voting system described in chapter 8. The recourse to an external arbitration, which we have just described, thus corresponds to the case where two legitimacies confront each other: on one side, that of the suffrage, on the other, that of the strategic rating. However, we have made sure to avoid recourse to voting for arbitration, because that would favor too strongly a return to the game of alliances.
With this mode of validation of decisions, we promote the emergence of the figure of the wise person, i.e., a person who is not necessarily very active and very popular, does not hold the role of president, but who, due to their high strategic rating linked to their progressively demonstrated rigor of reasoning, can intervene at any time and change a decision, provided that this intervention is validated by an external third party. We have thus put in place an effective counter-power vis-à-vis the president's power, derived from suffrage, and therefore vis-à-vis suffrage itself.

Implementation

An entry in the journal of strategic reflections that has followed a normal process ends with a section on the follow-up of the implementation of the recommendations, which will be filled in by the director and not the president.

Conversely, an entry can be closed at any time, and in this case, it will simply end with the withdrawal date and the reason. It is the author(s) of a strategic question who can unanimously decide to close it. The reason may optionally be its replacement by a new strategic question that may be proposed by more people.

Later Evaluation

The last section of an entry in the journal of strategic reflections is reserved for the possible subsequent methodological evaluation of this study, of which we will see the procedures in more detail in chapter 11. Let us simply note from now that when the study is evaluated, the quality of the questions of the journal of strategic reflections, the relevance of the resources allocated by the president for the study, as well as the quality of the implementation of the recommendations in the light of the quality of the conclusions of the study are also evaluated at the same time.

Restoration of Margins of Maneuver

The president also has the role of ensuring that the decisions made do not excessively limit the future margins of maneuver of the organization, and of launching strategic reflections to increase them as much as possible.
Put differently, it is not enough to carry out each strategic reflection correctly from the point of view of rationality, as mentioned at the end of chapter 7. One also has to avoid getting trapped in a situation where all decisions are dictated by previous choices that excessively reduce the margins of maneuver. This is particularly true regarding the digital world. There is therefore a fundamental work to be done to restore these margins, which must be organized by the president. Obviously, this work has just as significant an effect on the solutions applicable at the level of the journal of problems.

External Effects on the Ecosystem

Finally, note that some organizations exist for the purpose of carrying out studies and making decisions on behalf of third parties. In this case, all their production must also conform to the formalism of the strategic reflection journal, in order to be audited in a socially impartial manner.
The existence of these organizations is explained by the fact that in chapter 8, we have favored organizations with a staff of about a hundred people. Therefore, in certain sectors of production requiring massive resources, some organizations will have the role of purely coordinating the activity of other subcontracting organizations.