Have you ever had a boss who simply wouldn’t listen to your perspective? Maybe they dismissed you despite tons of supporting evidence that you might be right! Experience does eventually yield expertise and credibility. That brings a lot of perks. Novices look to those “old-hands” for guidance, and we all benefit from the wisdom of more experienced peers. But it’s easy to become closed-minded and arrogant; to use experience as a justification not to listen or learn. The Wolf of Rubbermaid Rubbermaid was born as the Wooster Rubber Company in 1920. Over the ensuing decades, the company would weat ..read more

I am guessing that like me, you believe in the importance of deep work. And because of that, you too are in a never-ending battle against context-shifting. We know it costs us precious cognitive energy and time. In part one of this two-article series I pointed out that we can choose to love interruptions. Instead of resisting changes in our day, we can ride the wave of unexpected demands like a surfer—with curiosity, excitement and even equanimity! But we are still left with the need to produce excellent work—for which we must focus. And if context-shifting is cognitively so costly that we can ..read more

Newton understood something profound about matter –and it is equally true for human systems and behavior. In any system, over time, entropy increases. It applies in our organizations, our strategies, and our lives. In general, whether a company or your closet, something that is organized will lose its order over time. And the more disorganization there is, the more energy is diverted away from the system’s intended purpose. But the way disorganization happens is random. In fact, the very nature of entropy is random. If you buy a new bicycle every component has been expertly machined to minimiz ..read more

Most strategy off-sites deliver a sense of cohesion for the participants –and a slightly edifying town hall for everyone else. But few go the distance of becoming the guiding document for every employee. But a robust strategic plan should be the foundation for every decision.  In the first two parts of this 3-article series, we touched on the critical content that most strategic plans lack—that is, a clear statement of their differentiator—the strategic theory.  Article 2 dug into all the different traits that a great strategic plan needs to perform and why most of the com ..read more

Most employees can’t make good strategic choices about how best to spend their time. The best employees will try to devise ways to increase their value to the enterprise. But without being able to refer to a clear strategic plan, they are only guessing. Of course, they know how their work is measured–the targets they must hit. But what about the strategy and how they fit into it? Not likely. That makes weighing options—or inventing new ways to add value—almost impossible. I hear endless frustration from my CEO clients about this issue—that their employees don’t get “it”. But h ..read more

Happy New Year! No doubt, you are rushing to secure the location for your strategic planning off-site! It occurred to me recently that as much as I write and think about strategy, I have never actually described how to do strategic planning! WTH? I wrote a whole book on the stuff—and not one article? So, my first order of action in 2024 is to correct that. This is part one of a two-article series on leading a strategic planning event. And even if you are never called upon to do so, this is for you. Why? Because you will attend a ton of these over your career. It’s important to understand ..read more

I had a completely different article nearly ready to go, and then… I got distracted by the call of pie dough.  Of course, you realize it’s nearly Thanksgiving here in the US. And so, our minds turn to feasts, and for me, baking, unexpected fruit combinations, and unusual ways to package root vegetables and autumn apples in flaky pastry. But, of course, Thanksgiving is really about gratitude. While I’ve never been a crusader for gratitude journals, many of my clients use them. I have tried it myself and enjoyed the exercise. But it never stuck as a long-term habit. I think that’s beca ..read more

Have you studied cognitive biases in hope of refining your own decision-making and thinking. I have. But, it’s been quite useless for improving my own thinking. That’s disappointing, even if it is now easier for me to see bias in other people, organizations, politicians, and random jerks who annoy me. It’s not a side of myself I really want to indulge!   Firestone In the 1990s, Firestone tires were standard on Ford Explorers. But in 1996 the State of Arizona reported that tires were separating during high temperature use. The CEO, John Lampe, sent engineers to Arizona.  The en ..read more

Think about how much of your life you spend asking “why”.  Why didn’t I go to the gym? Why did I at my PA? Why can’t I stop smoking? Much of our time is spent looking for explanations. Why Does Why Matter? Our brains like order. That was true for us as Neanderthals, and it remains true today. During a drought on the savannah, plants withered and bore no fruit. Herd animals migrated away. Cave-dwellers would be hungry, unable to forage or hunt food– infants sick. Clan leaders saw the despair and offered explanations. Someone broke a rule or violated a taboo. The Gods were angry. Explanatio ..read more

SWOT analyses are a much-maligned framework. And I confess to having been among the hecklers. In fairness, I respect the methodology, but I hate its use as a synonym for “strategy”. Let’s define terms. A SWOT is a framework for assessing key aspects of an organization’s position. The initials stand for Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities and Threats, and the model is simple. Using a 2 by 2 matrix, for each category, assess your organization and list your insights in the correct box. If done well, you gain a set of insights that can drive strategic thinking. When you then develop your strategy ..read more