Strategy – Dan Greer

Does Your Company’s Culture Reinforce Its Strategy And Purpose?

Dan Greer — Mon, 13 Jun 2022 15:02:42 +0000

I have done a lot of work in the area of strategy because that requires you to define your competitive advantage in your market and find a way to leverage that to make a profit. Equally as important is the organizational culture your people work in to make sure they are empowered and love working together as a team.

What is rising to the top again is the North Star of purpose which takes leaders beyond making a profit to making a difference. This post by HBR is a very practical application of all three priorities:

“Early in my career, strategy was seen as the key to business success. More recently, purpose has become an essential element of doing business — the north star and inspiration meant to orient all company activities. But there is often a large gap between a company’s purpose and what its employees experience, and a simple communication campaign about the great new company purpose won’t do much good on its own.”

4 Behaviors That Help Leaders Manage A Crisis

Dan Greer — Sun, 05 Apr 2020 14:22:45 +0000

Crisis management demands agility in leaders because decisions need to be made faster with limited information. Normal long range planning now might be a week. Defining top level priorities and evaluating daily appropriate next steps is the new reality. This HBR post is an excellent blueprint on how to lead well:

“The roles and responsibilities of business leaders have dramatically changed in the past few weeks. Before COVID-19, CEOs and other executives in high-growth companies were focused on fostering innovation, driving revenue, and gaining market share. Today, many of those same leaders must make rapid decisions about controlling costs and maintaining liquidity. They may encounter unforeseen roadblocks — supply chain issues, team shortages, and operational challenges — that drastically alter the scope of their roles and priorities. All the while, they and their teams are navigating health and safety concerns, working remotely, and supporting their families through the pandemic.”

Leadership Is An Infinite Game

Dan Greer — Sun, 12 Jan 2020 14:52:10 +0000

The demands for short term results are driving many leaders to make fatal strategic decisions. This type of reactive culture ensures that the organization is not set up for long term success. The investment concept of pay now and see the results later is almost gone. This post by Shelia Goldgrab is well worth the time to read:

“If life is a game, you need to know whether you are playing an infinite game or a finite one. As Simon Sinek and others have pointed out, if you play the games of leadership and business as though winning is central, then you are playing a finite game. However, if the point is to keep the game going, then you’re engaged in a different game — an infinite one. Forming new habits of leadership is definitely playing an infinite game, and that’s a vital distinction.”

Every Business Owner Should Define What Success Looks Like

Dan Greer — Mon, 16 Sep 2019 19:27:04 +0000

Regardless of whether you are a for profit or a non profit, every organization should define what success really looks like. This sounds so simple but in reality it is obviously not. Are you wanting extremely fast growth or are you looking to build a sustainable long term strategy? Depending upon your answer, your metrics will dramatically change. This HBR post is worth the time to read and understand:

“What do you mean we can’t pay dividends this year?” Elisa was incredulous. The board of the watch company she and her husband Mark had founded had just reviewed projected end-of-year performance. Usually this meeting was a celebration of another incremental step forward, with moderate growth, no debt, and significant dividends, which Elisa and Mark used to support their comfortable lifestyle and charitable donations. This year, however, revenue growth was way up, but profits were down, and the covenants on the debt taken out by the company to achieve that growth did not allow for any dividends.”

Why Today’s Best Leaders Aren’t Just Bold: They Are Brave

Dan Greer — Wed, 04 Sep 2019 15:51:04 +0000

Courage as leaders can be defined as the ability to make the hard decision that may not be popular but you know it is right. Many times it requires looking more at long term metrics that will take time to develop. Always doing what is best for the long haul, will eventually prove to be right for now. This post by Jim Link has great content:

“Many key leadership traits are timeless, like integrity, sound judgment and dedication. But effective leadership today requires attributes that go far beyond those to address the unique challenges and opportunities of the digital era. It’s not just about being tech-savvy or entrepreneurial — it’s about having a bold, flexible leadership mindset that positions your organization to not only survive the present, but thrive in the future. It requires courage, a certain kind of “organizational bravery” that today’s leaders must work quickly to adopt in order to drive their organizations forward.”

A Painful Breakup: Amazon And FedEx

Dan Greer — Sun, 11 Aug 2019 14:06:21 +0000

If you don’t think strategy matters, then you have not been watching this business relationship for the last three years. Regardless of the size of your company you must keep looking outward to see what your market is doing and especially what your customers want. Blake Morgan breaks down the issues:

“Amazon and FedEx have long relied on each other, but Amazon’s recent investments in its own delivery service has frustrated FedEx and led to the companies’ breakup. After ending its contract on air deliveries in June, FedEx won’t renew its contract for ground deliveries that expires at the end of August. The breakup forces Amazon to find new ways to ship millions of packages before the holidays.”

Avoiding Disruption Requires Rapid Decision Making

Dan Greer — Sat, 04 May 2019 14:57:13 +0000

I am working with companies that have to deal with the realities of disruption in their markets on a seemingly weekly basis. The critical issue for leaders is to know when to try to match or exceed what is changing or on the other extreme make a hard trade-off decision and just maintain alignment of existing activities. This HBR post is an excellent framework:

“To thwart possible disruption, pundits give legacy companies such advice as “disrupt yourself before you get disrupted” or “put frontline employees in charge of strategy and execution.” This counsel is of little help. Military history offers a much better way to respond. We call it tempo-based competition.”

How Winning Organizations Last 100 Years

Wed, 03 Oct 2018 06:00:27 +0000

One of the most significant leadership books in my lifetime is Good To Great by Jim Collins. What made it so powerful is his team did a tremendous amount of research on what were the consistent factors in place that allowed good companies to grow and sustain Greatness. This HBR post is placed in the context of modern disruption and presents some fascinating conclusions:

“The average lifespan of a U.S. S&P 500 company has fallen by 80% in the last 80 years (from 67 to 15 years), and 76% of UK FTSE 100 companies have disappeared in the last 30 years. In stark contrast, organizations in other sectors celebrate their 100th birthday and look like they’ll be here forever. How do they do it? And what can business learn from them?”

Nine Steps To Develop Leadership Discipline

Fri, 03 Aug 2018 11:00:42 +0000

Great leadership is a combination of having the discipline to execute daily on major priorities while at the same time keeping one eye on your market and competition. Operational excellence is demanded but you must create a culture where strategic innovation can thrive. The Forbes Coaches Council always delivers:

“Business leaders have a tough job. They must manage themselves, lead others and keep the organization heading in the right direction. They are ultimately accountable for the organization’s success. With this comes stress, fear and other emotions that can get in the way of leadership discipline.

Working with CEOs and entrepreneurs, I have the joy of working with some fantastic leaders. I see and experience their wins — their satisfaction of doing a good job. With that, I hear and see the personal struggles, the burden of people issues and the overall frustration that comes with leading.”

The 6 Ways To Grow A Company

Fri, 29 Jun 2018 11:00:40 +0000

This post by Gino Chirio is a gold mine in so many critical areas: strategy, innovation and process improvement. The tension today between lowering cost through process improvement and how many priorities should be directed toward innovation is what makes companies win or fail. I promise the graph alone is worth the read:

“The term “innovation” is often associated with geniuses turning startups into gold mines — the next Google, Apple, or Amazon, with products no one even knew they needed. Private equity firms place hundreds of little bets on these startups, hoping one produces a windfall that covers the rest. These bets on the next growth engine often depend on luck more than insight.”