A Strategic Plan With Legs: Strategic Planning Part 3
Most strategy off-sites deliver a sense of cohesion for the participants –and a slightly edifying town hall for everyone else. But few go the distance of becoming the guiding document for every employee. But a robust strategic plan should be the foundation for every decision. In the first two parts of this 3-article series, we […]
Mind the (Logical) Gap—Strategic Planning Part 2
Most employees can’t make good strategic choices about how best to spend their time. The best employees will try to devise ways to increase their value to the enterprise. But without being able to refer to a clear strategic plan, they are only guessing. Of course, they know how their work is measured–the targets they must hit. […]
Director of Slide-Greasing
Hopefully, you had a spectacular summer and a wonderful holiday weekend. If you’re in the US, Happy Labor Day! Now, it’s back to work! In honor of Labor Day week, I thought we should consider the ways that we think about employees. One of my clients, “Vijay”, is head of engineering in a SaaS startup. […]
Just One More Dataset!
In 1815, Napoleon was going to face the British and their allies in what would become the Battle of Waterloo. The French had many more troops, and certainly could have won. But Napoleon was preoccupied with getting greater certainty by obtaining more information. While he was requesting infantrymen run to the front and bring back […]
The Upside of Anxiety
We often think of anxiety in negative terms. And of course, it can be debilitating and miserable. But it can also be a tool that you leverage, either for your own, or your team’s benefit. Anxiety comes in many forms. Excitement, jitters before a race, and butterflies in your stomach on a first date are […]
It’s The Employee’s Fault!
We’re at that point in the year when if you haven’t already developed your strategy for 2023, at the very least you are reviewing the results for the past year. When the results are poorer than hoped, the direction of blame usually points in a predictable direction: at the employees. The reasoning makes sense. Poor […]
Neutrality Can Sniff Out Bad Strategy
I was listening to a radio interview with David Cohen, an experienced Special Master. You are probably familiar with the title as it has been in the news lately. But, in case not, a Special Master is essentially a judge’s proxy, charged with ensuring the court’s orders are fulfilled, and doing it with utter neutrality. […]
Is Your Strategy Ready For A Recession?
Unless you’ve been living on Mars, you’re probably aware that lots of people and indicators suggest we’re aiming for a recession. That may or may not be true, But regardless of whether a recession comes, change is afoot. Whether inflation, interest rates, supply chains, lower valuations, fuel prices or geopolitical unrest,the assumptions that may underlie […]
Deciding Strategy Despite Uncertainty
Many of today’s leading founders and CEOs have never weathered an economic downturn. It’s been almost 10 years since the recovery from the great recession, and business has been booming. Burt if you listen to the news, it’s hard not to be convinced that recession is around the corner. Yet, the indicators are more ambiguous […]
Uncertainty Grammar
In Turkish there is a suffix (mis) that turns a statement uncertain. It’s used to create the “inferential” mood. We don’t have anything like it in English or other Latinate languages, although it does exist in many Baltic languages. In Estonian it is called the oblique mood. When people use this tense they are essentially […]