In the opera <strong>Turandot</strong>, Calaf the prince has to solve three riddles to marry the princess. He wants to win the princess against all odds, as he ... » 

In the opera Turandot, Calaf the prince has to solve three riddles to marry the princess. He wants to win the princess against all odds, as he is hopelessly in love. When solving the riddles does not result in his marriage to Turandot, he has to come up with a different approach. He then decides on an unconventional action. But by doing that he has to take a tremendous risk.This situation might occur in many organizations that struggle to realize their strategic ambitions. On many occasions, management faces a dilemma with a high risk: do they stick with their strategy or do they change it? Managers have two processes at their disposal to manage the strategy realization. They are quite familiar with one process, the so-called strategy feedback. In this process managers monitor the implementation of their strategic plan and take corrective action if the performance is off-track. From my research comes forward that these strategy feedback processes are formalized into management instruments and are often applied. Many organizations use some form of business planning cycle, performance management and key performance indicators. Managers find it harder to manage the second process, the so-called strategy feed forward. This process is intended to question the assumptions underlying a strategy in order to assess whether changing course is necessary. Contrary to strategy feedback, strategy feed forward processes are often conducted informally. It concerns soft signals, like impressions, hunches and intuition that fall outside the formal reporting. This makes it difficult to assimilate the valuable learning lessons from these early warning signals. In the oration indications are formulated for managers in conducting the strategy feed forward processes and designing a favorable organizational context. «