Learning from Facebook executive departures
The departures of key executives from Facebook last week are the latest over the past 18 months. They highlight a number of key lessons in strategy and strategy implementation: Leaders…
The Implementation Advantage
Strategy fails when it’s not implemented well – when it’s not connected to what goes on in people’s jobs day-to-day. You need to connect it. And you also want decisions…
3 Leadership Themes for 2019
A quick observation: My best clients, the ones who get the most value from our work together, take the ideas we discuss and put them into practice instead of thinking…
Strategy Isn't Tactics
Strategy isn’t about starting from today and going forward into the future. It’s about defining the future you want and working backwards from it to determine how you’re going to…
Are You Discovering Enough Strategic Insights?
Nearly every company has experienced a period of prolonged financial difficulty. Growth does not occur in a straight line, but rather in a series of growth curves similar to product…
Learning to Think Strategically
Newly-promoted executives face a number of significant challenges as they adapt to an executive role. One of the most significant is the ability to think strategically. In my 30 years…
The First Key to Exponential Growth
If you want exponential growth, you need to have a very clear picture of the business you want to have in the future: What will you be providing? Who will…
Is Your Strategy Sustainable?
Business strategy is all about having a distinctive position in your market, and making that distinctiveness sustainable. A distinctiveness that can be easily replicated is not a good strategy. Companies…
What's Your Niche?
To grow your business and improve profits stop thinking of your company as one of many competitors in a broad market, and define a narrower market niche to focus on.…
Operating at the CEO Level
The CEO has the responsibility to think strategically about the company and its business. This is a two-fold challenge: The first part is to extricate yourself from day-to-day tactics, problems…
Why You Need to "Think Different"
Exactly 20 years ago, Apple came up with a “Think Different” marketing theme. In part it was a rejoinder to IBM’s “Think,” but it resonated widely with businesses. It’s still…
Top 7 Obstacles Getting in the Way of Your Strategy
Over the past 30 years, I've worked on strategy and strategy execution with the senior management of Fortune 1000 companies, mid-market companies, and Inc 5000 companies. In all that time,…
Keep Your Eyes on the Prize
Professional race car drivers have their eyes well down the track in anticipation and readiness. So do the very best equestrians who immediately upon completing one jump will be looking…
What's Your Competitive Advantage?
Business strategy is all about competitive advantage. An brilliant strategy is be both unique and sustainable. If it's not unique, then you're simply running the same race as your competitors. …
Senior Management Incentives in the News
Strategic incentives are a good idea at the top. But getting everyone one in a large company on the same page is difficult, and it doesn't always work. Here are…
Powerful Ideas to Improve Your Leadership
From many years of coaching executives, here are five pointers for becoming a better leader: Hire people who are better than you in their discipline; not subordinates. Focus yourself on…
Do This Before the End of February
It's February and you've got most of the year still ahead. See if you can answer these questions clearly and briefly: What is your strategy? What is the over-arching vision…
Three Imperatives of Profitable Growth
From over 30 years of working with organizations of all sizes and in many industries on improving business outcomes especially growth and profits: The most valuable part is having a…
Beware Organizational Arsonists
An arsonist is someone who finds little things to pick on, to call attention to, and to question. They start small "fires" here and there requiring time and attention to…
Building Competitive Advantage
An important focus for any business strategy is to establish a competitive advantage for the firm. The two primary ways to do this are to be the low-cost producer and…
Do You Have Enough Runway for Your Strategy?
My client called me to help improve company performance. The strategy they had developed was beautiful, like a new 747, capable of taking them where they wanted to go. The…
When Culture and Strategy Conflict
This one is simple: If strategy and culture go head-to-head, bet on the culture. Here's why: Too many leaders, especially those who are out to change a company's strategy, think…
5 Key Levers for Successful Strategy Execution
Most strategies fail to achieve their objectives, not because the strategies are faulty, but because the implementation is weak. It’s like building a beautiful jet airplane requiring 5000 feet to…
Ten Reasons Why Strategies Fail
There isn't a strategy. The strategy is distributed in 3-ring binders, everyone celebrates getting that done and thinks the strategy will implement itself. The strategy is actually an operations improvement…
How to Spark Real, Dedicated Innovation
A strategic vision is, by far, the least appreciated element of strategy, yet it has the power to focus the strategy, energize innovation, and mobilize an entire organization. There are…
Apple's Values Drive Their Business — Do Yours?
I watched a Charlie Rose interview with Joni Ives last week. Ives is the now legendary head of design for Apple -- the guy who worked so closely with Steve…
How Great Leaders Navigate Strategy
Here is a list of what my best clients do: Understand that your commitment to the strategy is on the line everyday. Lead strategy formulation and implementation. Communicate strategy over…
How to Get Your Organization On the Same Page
This newsletter is entitled "On the Same Page." It can refer to many things including an orchestra whose members are following the score, or the dramatis personae of a play,…
Executive Game-Changers
Over my career I've worked with at least a thousand executives, including hundreds of CEOs and presidents. The best ones aren't so concerned with making incremental improvements -- that's what…
3 Signs of a Successful Strategic Planning Process
Of course increased revenue, profits, and market share are the real outcomes, but here are three ways you can tell if your organization is focused on your strategy: Every participant…
Make Your Strategy Sessions More Engaging
Strategy should be exciting, challenging, and stimulating. It should elicit the very best thinking of your key people, get the creative juices flowing, build enthusiasm, and get them on the…
How Strategic Planning is Changing
Gone are the days of big binders with detailed projections, economic analyses, and all the other stuff that is old even before it is put in binders and distributed. Here…
Weak Company Performance and Great Employee Reviews
My most successful clients are very good at aligning individual goals with strategic intent so that everybody is actively working to achieve the company's strategy and acting like an owner…
Strategic Planning is Rapidly Changing
Long gone are the thick binders GE used decades ago to create detailed plans for the next five years. Even the approaches pioneered in the early 1980's based on an…
Getting More In-Tune With External Changes
One of the highest concerns of presidents I talk with these days is how to create an organization that is more proactive in sensing external change, and more responsive when…
The Best Answer to "What's Your Strategy?"
I like to ask CEOs what their business strategy is. Sometimes I get a crisp, clear response, but often the answer either is a bunch of words without clarity, or…
Can strong management inhibit innovation and change?
Today's business world requires innovation and change and companies that aren't good at these can quickly run into difficulty. But often overlooked is the role of current operations in constraining…
6 Ways Your Board Can Help Your Strategy Succeed
An important factor in implementing your strategy is getting your board involved. Yet many of the boards I work with spend way too much time on the past--reviewing operational updates…
Strategy and The Final Mile
In the cable industry, the final mile is connecting the cable system to customers’ homes. It is the most costly part of the entire system, and in many ways the…
How leaders balance strategies and tactics
The Vail condo I've been to a few times has a large hand-lettered sign in the garage that reads, "Wait for me, for I am your leader." It's funny, but…
How to Create a Distinctive Business Strategy
A key to market leadership, strategic planning, and strategic management is to have a distinctive strategy. Organizations with the same strategy are forever competing on price, and you don't want…
What is Strategy Implementation?
Most strategies fail to achieve their objectives. The problem is rarely the strategy and usually a weak implementation. Successful implementation requires far more than an action plan, t-shirts, and coffee…
Are you too busy for strategy?
I'm finding that executives in most companies are running flat-out these days. Many of the companies who contact me say their executives simply don't have the time to do strategy,…
Leading Change & Keeping Everyone On-Board — Navigating Corporate Change
In business strategy, navigating change is of paramount importance. Every strategic plan requires changes in how the organization must perform, and no strategy is implemented without further change along the…
Strategy and the overly-stressed staff
Just in the past week: A director in a nationwide software implementation company told me how her people were deeply stressed by overly-demanding work and travel schedules A nurse leader…
Leadership Skills For Strategy — Navigating Corporate Strategy
Business strategy is dependent on leadership skills to guide development and successfully implement. These leadership skills focus the organization on the strategy, continually energize people, and ensure progress as the…
Strategic Position — Knowing Where You Are When Navigating Corporate Strategy
A key to business strategy implementation is navigation. Knowing where you are, how far you have traveled, and how much further you must go. On a sailboat, there are many…
When to Change Your Strategy — Navigating Corporate Strategy
When implementing a strategy, it is imperative to adapt to conditions. In most cases, this means not following the plan, but improvising to adjust to market conditions, competitive moves, customer…
Determining Your Strategy — Navigating Corporate Strategy
In business strategy, determining your strategy is setting the course to achieve the vision and strategic objectives. After setting your mission and vision, you need to determine the strategy to…
Navigating Corporate Strategy: Start Your Strategy at the End
Business strategy begins with mission and vision--the destination. The strategy, and how you implement it, depend on knowing where you are going and what you want to accomplish. A very…
Navigating Corporate Strategy: Get Your Terms Right
In leading strategy, it's important to have working definitions of the terms. Different people have different definitions for words such as "goal" and "objective," and if you want good communications,…
Navigating Corporate Strategy Videos
Here is the first of my new 8-part video series highlighting key elements of corporate strategy and tactics, and comparing them to sailing strategy and tactics. Take a few minutes…
The Greatest Danger of Success
It’s inertia – it’s the belief that it will continue forever, or at least a long time. Success makes one feel cocky and self-important. And it makes an organization feel…
Why Strategies Fail
Some corporate strategies fail because the strategy itself is flawed or non-existent. For example, former Kodak CEO Kay Whitmore told me in 2000 that no one at Kodak could figure…
Navigating Corporate Strategy — Introduction
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pxYnDKLv0eg&w=560&h=315]
How to Ensure the Success of Your Strategy
Whether you are politically for or against Obamacare, there can be no dispute about the implementation failure surrounding the $400 million website portal that was to be one-click access to…
Keep your strategy on track
When the smell of melted cheese in Starbuck’s new breakfast sandwiches began to overwhelm the aroma of fresh coffee in his stores, Howard Schultz made adjustments. When new ideas surfaced…
Plans vs. Planning
We had intended to sail across Lake Ontario into Canada last week, but the weather and waves were not good, so we changed course for an equally long and still…
Your strategy is worthless…unless it's implemented
Here’s how it often goes: The strategy session is done. The new strategy is compiled in binders and distributed to senior management. The binders make their way from desktop to…
Improvisation: In Music and in Business
Many of the famous classical composers were excellent at improvisation. Mozart for example, would ask an audience for a few musical notes, then sit at a piano and improvise a…
Why Your Strategy Depends on Talent
The success of your strategy depends heavily on the quality of your talent, particularly in key positions. Reed Hastings, CEO of Netflix, says the best performers are twice as good…
What is Strategy Implementation: A Quick Overview
Most strategies fail to achieve their objectives. The problem is rarely the strategy and usually a weak implementation. Successful implementation requires far more than an action plan, t-shirts, and coffee…
Decision Paralysis
During détente back in the days of Gorbachev, a group of Russian diplomats was taken to an American supermarket. Contrary to the expectations of the American hosts, the Russians were…
Strategies Get Implemented by People
Formulating a new strategy can be hard work, but it’s not nearly as difficult as implementing a strategy. That’s because implementing the strategy requires mobilizing hundreds or even thousands of…
Not Lovin' It So Much
McDonalds told franchisees last month that “service is broken.” Rude employees, slow service, and a chaotic environment don’t lead to a good customer experience. No doubt it’s quite a challenge…
How to Create a Compelling Vision
How to Create a Compelling VisionVision statements should be compelling. They should paint a clear, vivid description of the organization in the future -- what you want to achieve. Here's…
Strategy and the Customer
The doctor appointment was for 3:30. I was still waiting at 5:00.They said the truck would be ready in an hour. An hour later the truck hadn’t gone in the…
Samsung and Apple's Resiliency
Samsung is testing Apple’s ability to respond post-Steve Jobs. It is a reminder that every strategy must adapt to change and that a company’s resiliency is not just a key…
Be More Weird
I was in Austin last week working with an international group on strategy. One of the key discussion topics was the need for change and innovation in the organization. Often…
What the Doctor Said
“Are you exercising?” he asked.“Yes, sure, I’m going on walks around the farm,” I said.“By exercising, I mean 30-40 minutes, 4 times each week where you break a sweat,” my…
Strategy and communication problems
Many leaders are simply not good at communicating their business strategy to the people who will execute it. That can be fixed with good coaching. But when your senior managers…
Fuzzy vision problem
Early in my consulting career, I worked extensively with Wilson Sporting Goods. One day I interviewed an elderly gentleman who was the wood head designer. He worked closely with Wilson’s…
Bees in a bottle
The experiment was simple. The scientists put a few bees and a few flies in a glass jar, and placed the jar against a window with the jar’s opening facing…
How to quickly assess a leader
Leadership effectiveness at all levels is an important component of successful strategy implementation. I’ve worked with hundreds of corporate leaders and I’ve seen all kinds. Weak leaders are driven by…
When Continuous Improvement is Bad for Your Company
Think about it. Google, the iPhone, Facebook, the microwave oven, the CD player.... None of these were a result of continuous improvement. I'm all for getting better at the fundamentals,…
Managing By Opinion
In some leadership groups, opinions appear to be more important than facts. I've seen senior management groups where an executive's in-depth knowledge and experience is over-ruled by opinions from other…
How clear is your strategy – Is your management team on the same page?
Most organizations set aside time each year for the senior team to discuss strategy and develop a strategic plan. Yet, in my experience, few companies end up with a strategic plan…