With a flurry of activity each day, we hope to accomplish the tasks that will enable us to reach our goals. Ideally, that flurry of activity is preceded and then interspersed with strategic thinking. Thinking strategically means carving out time to consider the current context, or situation we’re in, identifying insights that will lead to new value for customers and then executing on those initiatives to deliver value. However, a recent… READ MORE

Good people of the business world, take cover! No, it’s not a tsunami, or hurricane or even a tropical storm. It’s the new scapegoat: headwinds. In a Wall Street Journal article entitled, “Sprint Loses More Customers,” Sprint Nextel CFO Joseph Euteneuer said, “We faced a number of competitive headwinds that became more pronounced in the second quarter.” Earlier in the week, Border’s began shuttering their roughly 400 remaining… READ MORE

An article entitled “As Big Boxes Shrink, They Also Rethink,” was published this week in the Wall Street Journal describing the move by retailers to downsize stores. Perhaps the need to rethink wouldn’t be so significant now if they had taken the time to actually think in the first place. One of the surest signs of a strategy-less organization is the reactive firefighting that goes on. Before they opened their own retail stores for which… READ MORE

Are you outperforming your competition? If an avalanche of excuses is the first thing that comes to mind, then the answer is most likely no. When it comes to market share, revenue, profits, new sales, or other key metrics, at some point your level of competitiveness must be honestly assessed. A Wall Street Journal article reported cellphone maker Nokia’s quarterly profit dropped 21% from a year earlier. Chief Executive Stephen Elop… READ MORE

When it comes to developing business strategy, we often leave that up to the business people. But what about the “others?” You know, the folks in technical areas critical to an organization’s success. These are the people with expertise in areas such as research & development, clinical development and information technology. Do they need to be strategic? If we define strategy as “the intelligent allocation of limited resources through a… READ MORE

After a determination has been made where resources should be allocated to provide the greatest differentiated value to customers, a plan for leading and monitoring the execution is needed. An article published in the Wall Street Journal yesterday entitled “Strategic Plans Lose Favor,” discussed how the traditional strategic plan is becoming obsolete. Any strategic plan over ten pages in a three-ring binder sitting on a shelf collecting dust is… READ MORE