iSTEEPLE….beyond PESTLE

PESTLE is an acronym for a business process designed to promote a more structured way of surfacing and discussing the big issues organisations may need to take account of. PESTLE simply stands for a range of factors, namely: Political, Economic, Societal, Technological, Legal and Environmental.     

PESTLE started its life in 1967 as a mere PEST (F Aguilar) but has morphed over the intervening period into its current incarnation. Before introducing Actinium’s version the following perspective may be helpful. Leaders of organisations have three main ‘environments’ they need to understand. These environments are the:

1.   Internal Environment – by this is meant everything within the boundaries of the organisation. Its people, assets, capabilities, know-how, IP, even its geographies and locations, etc. Leaders should be able to exercise a significant, if not total, degree of CONTROL over this environment. 

2.   Operating Environment - this is the environment where organisations ‘make their living’. This is where customers, suppliers, competitors, regulators and other key stakeholders reside and need to be engaged with and/or have value created and/or be effectively managed.  This environment contains many more ‘free actors’ who are able to act independently. Consequently, leaders can only bring INFLUENCE to bear in this arena, although influence can be achieved in many different ways.

3.   Macro Environment - this is the environment of geopolitics, national and global economics, major technological and societal changes and other global impacting issues, events and changes. The macro environment may be both national and global in nature and operates beyond the scope of most organisations to affect it. Consequently, leaders basically have two ‘strategic’ options or approaches. They can either REACT or they can ADAPT. In evolutionary terms adaptation is a far more successful strategy than reaction but requires actively seeking out information in this very difficult often amorphous environment. It then requires understanding and synthesising into future based thinking and strategies.

In the modern world it may be worthwhile introducing two new elements into the mix of things that need leadership attention – namely Interconnectedness and Events. Keeping it current would give rise to the following acronym - iSTEEPLE

i = Interconnectedness factors

S = Societal factors 

T = Technological factors

E = Environmental factors

E = Economic factors

P = Political factors

L = Legal factors

E = Events

The introduction of Interconnectedness factors opens up discussions and investigations into much wider areas of human and system interactions. For example: globalisation (and its current reversing trends); global supply chains; technology from a cyber world challenges perspective; psychology of cultures, societal structures and human difference; among many others

The introduction of Events as a factor is designed to act as a trigger for thinking and discussion around what might be encapsulated as being ‘unforeseen’ occurrences - for example, global pandemics. Including Events in the acronym begins to stimulate more systematic thinking about the bigger ‘what ifs’ that might be in an organisation’s uncertain future. Thinking about a range of possible/plausible futures often moves organisations into scenario planning based thinking which in turn sensitises the organisation to the various possible futures identified and ultimately increasing the organisations resilience.

For more information on using iSTEEPLE and/or Scenario Planning to improve resilience and adaptation please do not hesitate to get in touch – actinium-cs.com