Is your organization following the “Fire, Ready, Aim” approach to strategy? If so, how’s that working for ya? I suspect not the best, but it’s what you know and you’re so dang busy reacting to the demands of daily business, who has time to plan? If that’s what you’re doing, then you’re not doing it right. When things are going well, it is the best...
Read More
I saw the title of this blog in a cartoon yesterday and it not only had me laughing, but had me thinking about strategy. And as a friend and colleague of mine also says “Hope is not a strategy.” While many companies will most likely not consciously say this, by their actions, this is exactly what they’re planning on – or more precisely they’re not...
Read More
I was consulting to a Fortune 500 company a while back on helping them develop new businesses internally. I’ve done quite a bit of that and find it fascinating, challenging and most certainly tricky. The senior executive in charge of executing this strategy said to me: “You’ve done a lot of this. In your experience, what are the 3 key things you’ve learned?” That took...
Read More
As I sat down to compose this post, I got to thinking about how crazy this time of year can be. Just meeting someone for lunch seems to take more effort than normal; parking is more difficult, restaurants are crowded, and heaven forbid the restaurant you choose is in a shopping mall, you’ll be trampled! Seeing all of these people running around made me think...
Read More
Well, it’s that time of the year again when people are thinking about strategic and business planning for 2014 and beyond. Numbers are being crunched and most people are either being overly optimistic in their planning or sandbagging. You know who they are, those eager-beavers and those lay-in-the-weeds types. Of course, not every company’s process is the same. But I can tell you from experience,...
Read More