Over the last 20 years, talk about strategy has been in serious decline. As much as a 60% decline to be more exact. Worse yet, today’s numbers are bolstered only by recent trends to understand specific applications like “social media strategy”, not strategy itself, or the numbers would be worse. And there’s one important thing […]
Intro Kraft Foods took a monstrously long time to develop its strategic plan back in the day. I’m talking months and months. Operations would start building product cost estimates beginning in early June. Marketing began building their plans early in the third quarter. And finance, well finance was always planning. Granted, Kraft was a $40B […]
The Theory Teleology is the explanation for something as a function of its end, purpose or goal. The teleology of a saw is to cut, a hammer to pound, a conveyor to convey. In other words, the teleology or purpose of these things, the reason they were designed in the first place, is to accomplish […]
There’s a saying out there attributed to Peter Drucker, the famous management guru: “Culture eats strategy for breakfast”. It’s understandable that business leaders might think this. After all, they put a lot of resources into crafting a strategy for success only to see it fail due to lack of alignment in the organization. But we’ve […]
It All Starts With Strategic Intent Imagine you have a large pile of Legos on a table and you and your team are going to build something together. What’s the first thing you should do? You probably should agree on what you’re building. The same goes for strategy. Before you start developing a […]
Is strategy about choosing to be different? Is it being the low-cost provider in the market? What about competitive advantage? How about a framework for making decisions? Marketing? Acquisitions? Adapting? Agility? Put “definition of strategy” in your search bar and you’ll get over 2.7 billion results. Read 1 billion of them and you’ll still […]
In the classic HBR article, Management Time: Who’s Got the Monkey, the authors say this: “Subordinate-imposed time begins the moment a monkey successfully leaps from the back of a subordinate to the back of his or her superior…” That happens all the time and most bosses LET it happen. They let their subordinates walk up […]
The Time Is Now Many businesses are facing an existential threat. For some, It’s already too late. Economic advisors are warning the reboot needs to start now because all indications are that waiting too long will plummet the country into an unprecedented depression. The Need Is Urgent Leaders need to rethink many aspects of how […]
In Greek mythology, ship captains had to safely pass the Sirens “whose sweet singing” lured sailors to their doom; Scylla, a devouring six-headed monster (the rock) on one side of a narrow passageway; and Charybdis, a swirling, un-navigable whirlpool (the hard place) on the other. Not much different than the challenges of leading a major […]
ThinkWay Services During the Pandemic (Effective Immediately Until Further Notice) (Updated 04/15/2020) A few weeks ago we were all concerned. Now it’s real. The COVID-19 crisis has raised the level of uncertainty in our world to new heights and put most plans for 2020 on indefinite pause. Instead, health, safety and business continuity are at […]
