A 40 Year Debate Over Corporate Strategy

This post by HBR was extremely challenging and helpful to me on this subject of corporate strategy.  Michael Porter’s HBR article on “What Is Strategy ” has become my best practice in helping clients.  The new factor in the conversation is how do you maintain a competitive advantage in a Read more

The Essence Of Strategic Planning

There is so much confusion today in corporate leadership around all of the commonly used terms of vision, purpose, mission and strategy.  The most confusion surrounds a through understanding of what strategy really means and how you develop and sustain the best strategic position.  This HBR post is excellent: “It Read more

Blind Spots That Plague Even The Best Leaders

The ongoing tension between innovation and execution have never been a bigger issue for leaders.  Competition and even Disruption demand leaders always watch the bottom line while looking out the window to see which way the wind is blowing.  The failure to do both can quickly doom your entire organization. Read more

GE The Need For A Single Overarching Strategy

The best advice I have received in a long time was from a client who insisted that I become competent with Michael Porter’s work on strategy.  It is clearly still a work in progress but I now realize that without a sustainable competitive advantage you will eventually fail.  Growth for Read more

The Importance Of Strategic Focus

When I started working with a new large client last year I was introduced to Michael Porter’s HBR work on strategy.  I found his findings challenging to understand at first but later realized just how critical his principles are to every organization.  To put it simply being a mile wide Read more

How To Connect Strategy To Sustainability Goals

It’s really amazing how long we have been talking about empowering people and yet we consistently miss the best ideas coming from the people on the front lines.  In essence we talk a lot about knowledge workforce and yet we still walk like all the best ideas come from the Read more

How To Survive In The Age Of Disruption

I recently spoke on this topic for a new client.  We are all accustomed to what I called developmental and market change.  To address this level of change we must constantly lean into process improvement and in some cases execute a significant realignment.  However, disruption requires nothing less than dramatic Read more

6 Building Blocks Of A Strategy

One of the best books I have read on developing a strategic plan and all that is involved in the execution of that plan was written by Larry Bossidy and Ram Charan called Execution.  It is a must read for any organization that uses teams to accomplish planning and execution. Read more