The Strategy Off-Site Meeting
It’s ironic that business strategy is designed to clarify a group’s direction, but the meetings to discuss it can often be muddied, disjointed, and result in greater confusion. One study showed that 80 percent of senior executives’ meeting time is spent on issues that account for less than 20 percent of the company’s long-term value. Another survey showed that 88…
Deconstructing Frankenstrategy
As the cool, white fog covers the ground on Halloween, beware the creatures lurking in the shadows of your company’s hallways. Nestled amongst the darkened offices is a single light, perhaps a candlelight, continuing to burn deep into the night. And there in that laboratory of an office, rising from the PowerPoint slides of Hell comes a creature pieced together…
Plan-tober
1. The plan is updated with new insights throughout the year to remain relevant. 2. The plan clearly identifies a limited number of priorities so we have extreme focus and are not spreading our resources too thin. 3. The plan drives my daily activities. 4. The plan is a concise summary of the factors that will make or break the…
Strategic Thinking Can Be Scary
As the month of October welcomes cool crisp nights filled with the smell of bonfires in the air, Halloween lurks in the shadows with its cadre of creatures. In recent years, zombies have amassed in quantity and popularity, securing a place for the Undead in the supernatural landscape. The zombie’s doppelgänger in the business arena is the UnStrategic. The UnStrategic…
Beware the Business Modelectomytes!
At the core of a company is the business model. While the business model receives the white-hot spotlight of attention during a company’s start-up phase, it is typically ignored once the organization is launched. Attention turns to products, sales and budgets, with little ongoing regard for the heart of the company. Does your team find itself battling Business Model Innovation competitors primarily…
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…
