RESOURCES

When All the Options Are Bad

Strategy

Reaching a good decision when facing a complex and uncertain situation is one of the fundamental roles of a leader. Typically, this requires a series of well-run meetings that progress the discussion until a workable solution is identified and embraced. However, despite this being a common process in organizational life, most people would say it seldom operates smoothly and frequently leads to less optimal solutions and lukewarm implementation.

 

Bob Woodward has made a career of writing about the inner workings of the White House. His reporting is so in-depth, you wonder how he manages…

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Traveling Far to Understand What is Near

Leadership

Traveling ranks high among the best learning opportunities available. Crossing borders, oceans, and cultures naturally broadens our horizons as we are forcibly pushed out of our comfort zones. There is an excitement that stimulates our learning when confronted by new sights, sounds, and smells. For the traveler on vacation, the goal is often to fill the schedule to experience as many once in a lifetime moments as possible.

 

However, that is not necessarily the approach of the most seasoned of travelers, the travel writer. They do not book their journey just looking for the…

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Breaking In and Standing Out

Strategy

Rock musicians are rarely who we look to for examples of strategic thinkers. In the genre’s heavy hitters such as Elvis Presley, Jerry Lee Lewis, and Jimi Hendrix, we find careers and even lives lost to scandals, drugs, and burnout. The typical American image of a rock star tends to be someone that exists in the moment, lives hard, and likely does not plan for the future. In spite of this, strategic thinking would seem a necessity in the music industry – one of the most competitive areas imaginable.

 

Most highschoolers who pick up…

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What Matters Most in Today’s Leadership

Leadership

It hardly seems worth noting that the last four years have been turbulent. But a statement by the authors of the article, “The Five New Foundational Qualities of Effective Leadership,” in Strategy + Business did create a moment of pause. They stated, “numerous leaders who were at the top of the CEO succession list in 2019 are no longer deemed fit-for-purpose by company directors. In the 10 to 15% of organizations we have worked with in which the 2019 top successor is still viewed as the best choice, those executives have often made significant, overt shifts in…

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Preparing for the Inevitable

Strategy

There are a some things in life most of us just didn’t see coming; movie casting choices, fashion trends, fusion restaurants. But most of the big events that shaped our generation like wars, pandemics, and financial crises provided warning signs we chose to ignore. President George W. Bush said in November 2005, “In a pandemic, everything from syringes to hospital beds, respirators, masks and protective equipment would be in short supply.” Then in 2014, President Obama said, “there may and likely will come a time in which we have an airborne disease that is deadly. And in…

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