Strategy

Strategy is about what you don’t do.  It’s about the ability to say “no” to opportunities that may be tempting but are not within your target markets.

Strategy is not about operational effectiveness.  It’s about being different and communicating that difference clearly and consistently as you build your brand.

If you can’t communicate your strategy in less than a dozen words, you probably don’t have one.  You may have a plan to improve your operations, but that’s not a strategy.

Strategy is so simple that it’s hard.

We can help you clarify and focus your strategy through a variety of services, including:

• Stakeholder interviews – to gather, winnow, and correlate strategic ideas
• Training sessions – teach employees the elements of strategy
• Strategy workshops – develop core ideas and build a consensus
• Communications – help you develop the messages and tools to ensure that all audiences – employees, potential employees, customers, and analysts – clearly understand the strategy.

Blog posts on Strategy:

• Walking Up The Economic Ladder
• Decision Theater
• Scanning The Future From Singapore
• Finally! A Way To Measure Corporate Culture.
• Don’t Argue In The Past Tense
• Segmenting The Body Politic
• Managing Agreement: The Abilene Paradox.
• Debiasing and Corporate Performance
• Failure Is An Option
• Innovating The Innovations
• Us Versus Them
• Managing The Matrix
• Another Reason For Female Executives
• Jevons Paradox and The Future of Employment
• Politics — Lying Versus Bullshitting
• Corporate Culture: Counting The Uncountable
• The Porcelain Elephant In The Room
• The Art Of Transformation
• Do Nudges Work? Should We Use Them?
• The Best Way To Disagree
• Filtering Water In The Information Desert
• Fundraising: From Observer To Participant
• Want A Good Ad? Conceal The Premise.
• Button-Down Innovation
• How Many Friends Can You Have?
• Disrupting the Lawyers
• Blockchain Beyond Bitcoin
• Disrupting the Bankers
• Sending A Memo To Your Future Self
• Surviving The Survivorship Bias
• Seeing With Your Eyes
• Designing Minds
• Innovation and Bananas
• Critical Thinking and VUCA
• Greek Game Theory
• When Irrational Behavior Is Rational
• McKinsey and The Decision Villains
• Three Decision Philosophies
• Maps, Isms, and Assumptions
• Are Women Better Spycatchers?
• Hedgehogs, Foxes, and The Future
• Just Add Women
• Brian Williams and Core Priorities
• Good Decisions, Bad Outcomes
• Inverting The Benefits Ladder
• My Microbiome Made Me Do It
• Success and Serendipity
• Immoral Afternoons
• Products As A Service – The Circular Economy
• Time, Cost, and Quality. Pick Any Two.
• Recruiting and The Triple Package
• Better Decisions for Your Company – 2
• Better Decisions for Your Company – 1
• Braess’s Paradox and The Super Bowl
• Design As A Competitive Weapon
• Is Big Data The Death Of Strategy?
• Which Companies Are The Most Innovative?
• Brain Networks At The Office
• Beware The Toy That Destroys
• Understanding the Railroad Cliché
• Did The Government Create The iPhone?
• Gaming the Tripwire
• Seven Leadership Styles
• Slaying a Dragon
• Perverse Incentives
• Deciding Decisively
• When Will We Have a Vision?
• Time — The Infinite Resource
• Give and Take and Corporate Culture
• Want a Good Decision? Go to Trial.
• The Structure of Predictions
• Premature Commitment. It’s a Guy Thing.
• Circuses and Oceans
• Seven Strategies (But Not For Success)
• Strategy: Five Components
• Strategy: Who’s Number 2?
• Leadership: Why Decisions Succeed
• Round the Clock Healthcare — for Free?
• Librarian, Farmer, Debacle
• The Anatomy of Debacles
• Strategy: What If Health Care Costs Go Down?
• Do Generals Stray More Than Teachers?
• Brand Names: Offense
• Innovation and the Installed Base
• Branding: Why Do They Buy?
• Dunbar’s Number: Why My Clients Hire Me?
• Changing Your Strategy? Change Your Culture.
• Strategy: Preparing for an Uncertain Future
• Do You Have the (Emotional) Intelligence to Lead?
• As we become more energy efficient, do we use less energy?
• Strategy: What Wouldn’t You Do?
• Strategy: Seeing What You Can’t See
• Group Behavior – The Risky Shift
• Prediction Markets and Obamacare – Intrade Got It Wrong
• Culture Eats Strategy for Breakfast
• Strategy versus Operational Effectiveness
• Breathing and Profits
• Would you refuse free money? Hope for the euro.
• Can you teach empathy?
• Wisdom and Leadership
• The Art of the Wrong View
• Developing a Habit of Innovation
• Creating a Culture of Innovation
• RIM’s new ads say, “We’re dead”
• What is wisdom?