Extinguishing Your Team’s Fire Drills
A fire drill occurs when people stop purposeful work guided by their plan and react to an urgent but less important issue. In the following video excerpt from the StrategyMan Learning System (based on the new book), see how the Anti-Strategy Squad villain Fire Driller attempts to destroy Technobody’s business with a reactionary fire drill. If your team is seduced…
Watch Out For the Meeting Menace!
Bad meetings are a sign of a lack of strategic thinking. Since managers spend approximately 40% of their time in meetings, we may as well make them more productive. In this video excerpt from the Strategyman Learning System, StrategyMan and the managers of Technobody battle the Meeting Menace.
Strategic Thinking Can Squash Status Quo-Lock
Is your team living Albert Einstein’s description of insanity: Doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results? Popular adages such as “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it,” “Don’t rock the boat,” and “Let sleeping dogs lie,” all feed into the natural tendency to prefer the status quo. Time and again, research has proven that when individuals have the option of doing something…
Camp Strategy: Developing Competencies and Capabilities
Summertime brings back memories of camp. As a young boy, all my friends went to a beautiful wooded summer camp where they swam, shot arrows and frolicked. Being highly allergic to frolic, I was sent to strategy camp instead. One night around a bonfire roasting spinach and tofu on sticks, the strategist-in-training camp counselor wearing a tan short-sleeved dress shirt,…
Reprogramming Your SWOT Analysis
SWOT Analysis is still the most commonly used strategic planning tool in the world and unfortunately, one of the most misused. A good SWOT Analysis can be sabotaged by the Anti-Strategy Squad if you don’t follow some simple guidelines: 1. Laundry List: SWOT is not designed to be a catch-all for everything that’s happening in your business so ditch the…
What Might You Be Missing?
In this eight-minute video, I’ll share with you three tips on ensuring that you and your team aren’t missing any key factors that could derail your business success this year. Strategic thinking and strategic planning will go a long way in filling in gaps that could cause your business to miss potential opportunities to grow and create advantage. By building…
Destroy the Multi-Taskinators!
Today, I’d like to…just a second…I need to check email on my phone…almost done…now, where was I? Oh, yes, I was saying that…hold on…just got a text…typing my reply now…adding the bitmoji…hitting send. OK, where were we? While multitasking may not seem this abrupt and annoying in daily interactions, make no mistake…it is! Studies show people check their smart phones, on…
Delegation through Strategic Thinking
How many managers in your organization are wasting their time and talent performing tasks that they should be delegating? Research shows a startling 41 percent of activities managers are working on are actually items that could and should be performed by the people that report to them. While it may feel good to roll up the sleeves and knock out…
Defeating the Dastardly Dr. Yes with Strategic Thinking
Here is a sobering thought: every half-hearted “yes” to something that’s not helping you achieve your goals is a concrete “no” to more valuable activities. Most managers practice passive disengagement, which means instead of pulling the plug on projects, activities and tactics that are no longer adding value, we continue to passively allow them to occupy our time and attention. Research…
Are Silos Destroying Your Business?
The word ‘silo’ has its roots in the Greek term ‘siros,’ which means ‘corn pit.’ Later, the word ‘silo’ was used by Western military units to describe underground chambers that were used to house missiles. Now, managers use the term ‘silo’ as an analogy for business systems, groups, or processes that work separately from one another. Silos can destroy a…
