Strategy is the implicit or explicit articulation of a deliberate set of adaptive choices made in a volatile, ambiguous, and uncertain environment about where to play and how to improve the odds of successfully accomplishing a purposeful goal having regard to the availability of resources, core competencies, culture, and management processes of a complex organization.
Continue reading “What is Strategy?”Category: Uncategorized
Enhancing Decision-Making with Evidence-Based Management
CEO’s who possess what I call Confident Humility are naturally lifetime learners. They welcome the opportunity to challenge and be challenged and for the most part, at least in my experience, are great to work with not only because they are good learners, they are also great teachers. Being a business advisor is a fantastic opportunity to teach, to learn, to have fun, and to feel you’ve made a difference i.e. it’s good for the bank, the mind, and the soul.
Continue reading “Enhancing Decision-Making with Evidence-Based Management”Rethinking The Innovator’s Dilemma: Should It Be Called The Incumbent’s Dilemma?
6 Minute audio
Clayton Christensen’s The Innovator’s Dilemma is a modern classic in business literature, shedding light on why successful companies often fail in the face of disruptive innovations. The book’s central insight is as paradoxical as it is profound: the very practices that make companies great can also lead to their downfall when the rules of the game change.
Continue reading “Rethinking The Innovator’s Dilemma: Should It Be Called The Incumbent’s Dilemma?”The Rapture of the Nerds
3 Minute Audio
In 2017 I was anxious to better understand how artificial intelligence was likely to impact the way we work so I bought and read Jerry Kaplan’s (a Stanford Professor) book “Artificial Intelligence: What Everyone needs to know.” The following paragraph in the final chapter jumped out at me when I re-read the second sentence today.
Continue reading “The Rapture of the Nerds”The challenge when advising early stage business founders in mature markets
Audio 4 minutes
There is a reason why SMEs stay SMEs or disappear completely often leaving shareholders with little or nothing, creditors with unrecoverable losses, employees looking for jobs, and families struggling to weather the storm of failure and bankruptcy.
Continue reading “The challenge when advising early stage business founders in mature markets”Your strategic goal may meet the SMART criteria but is it the SMARTEST framework for developing a strategy?
The popular acronym for goal setting is SMART which typically stands for:
Continue reading “Your strategic goal may meet the SMART criteria but is it the SMARTEST framework for developing a strategy?”Unlocking the Power of Communication
In an increasingly interconnected world, effective communication is more important than ever. Yet, despite the many ways we can communicate, for many people—including myself—a significant gap remains between merely hearing what someone says and truly understanding them.
Continue reading “Unlocking the Power of Communication”Some thoughts on Consolidation and Private Equity Investment
In the late 1990’s and early 2000’s there was a lot of activity in the accounting services sector as the rules relating to ownership of firms were being relaxed to allow non-accountants to own equity in firms. The accounting services sector was then (and now!) highly fragmented which presented an opportunity for consolidation, owners of firms were ageing and many were thinking about retirement at a time when the next generation of prospective owners were not showing much interest in partnership, and the competitive landscape was becoming more intense dues in large part to a somewhat disruptive impact of technology and other things.
Continue reading “Some thoughts on Consolidation and Private Equity Investment”You’ll be a better leader if you subscribe to these tenets of intellectual honesty
I once read, and copied, a statement about intellectual honesty I thought was excellent and worth sharing. It was issued by a university (I think Harvard) as a condition when registering for a course I did that. I have lost the original source so if you recognize the wording please let me know. This is the document, slightly edited by me to put it into the context of organizational leadership.
Continue reading “You’ll be a better leader if you subscribe to these tenets of intellectual honesty”A Goal is Not a Strategy
It is quite common to see statements like:
“Our strategy is to become the preeminent firm in our community.”
“Our strategy is to disrupt our industry.”
“Our strategy is to disintermediate the industry’s supply chain.”
A sole business owner, might say “my strategy is to make a living doing the best I can.”
Continue reading “A Goal is Not a Strategy”