Strategic Flexibility: Balancing Commitment and Adaptability
Strategy
Strategic flexibility can seem like a contradiction in terms. A good strategy provides clarity of direction so an organization can be “all in” related to resources, structures, and processes. Efficiencies occur through alignment across all the company’s important activities that reinforce strategy execution. The certainty of strategy enables a company to compete with a business model that offers a significant target customer base with a unique and valuable solution. However, companies often discover over time that they cannot defend their market position or that a significant target market finds their offerings less valuable and unique. When that happens, flexibility becomes a…
Read more.Ownership is Everything
Leadership
One of the most unattractive qualities in a leader is a failure to take ownership. The relationship with your leader sours quickly when it becomes clear they are allergic to accepting responsibility. It may start out with a bonding experience to blame leaders above, other departments, or even ignorant customers, but at some point, you begin to notice the obsession with blaming others to look good. Worse than the relational damage is the hit to productivity. Learning does not take place in an environment where great effort is expended to avoid being blamed for anything. Like a…
Read more.Death by Debate
Leadership
Patrick Lencioni’s classic fable, Death by Meetings, captures all the challenges of meetings and provides some very practical solutions. In the story’s big climax, the team conducts a highly engaging and productive meeting when the stakes are high. The result is choosing one option over another and moving towards an action plan. One of the complaints about meetings is that firm decisions are seldom reached and everyone leaves the meeting either frustrated or with unclear assumptions about what was decided.
In Lencioni’s example, the team conducted research and identified two attractive but opposing options….
Read more.Systems that Build, Preserve and Collapse
Organizational Transformation
The good news according to Peter Zeihan in The End of the World is just the Beginning, is that we have been fortunate to live through a unique period in history that saw unparalleled flourishing for most of the population. The bad news is that period is over. From the end of World War II until about 2015, Zeihan argues globalization made it possible for nations to leverage their resources and participate in a global market. That broad-based participation was made possible because the United States invested heavily to ensure safe transportation and adherence to international rules and norms.
The…
Read more.Avoiding Bad Surprises
Leadership
Watching your favorite team‘s coach discuss their failures after a loss in a game they were expected to win is painful but also insightful. In sports, there is a clear start and finish as well as a declared winner. The losing coach cannot deny his team’s defeat. In most cases, losing coaches seem a bit surprised at their team’s less-than-desired performance. It is not uncommon to hear a coach say, “We had a really good practice the day before the game” or “I thought the team was mentally and emotionally prepared to compete.” Often, a particular aspect of the…
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