Today, I mark my 44th birthday. People often wish people happiness or joy on birthdays. For some reason, I am not a fan of these sentiments. They seem sappy and fleeting. It’s the reason why I never make my birthday visible on Facebook. Saying Happy Birthday in some meaningless post once a year does not [...]
Tag Archives | process
Solving Tough Problems
That big-ass problem that’s been keeping you up from 2-4:00 am? It hasn’t been solved for a while right? Perhaps it’s been a month, a year, or seemingly forever … Have you really thought about it? (And no, those adult witching hours of 2:00 am to 4:00 don’t count; they just torment.) It is easy [...]
Love Process, not Fear Ambiguity.
Have you ever started some new project, some new challenge — all excited to make an impact — and then feel overwhelmed? A friend of mine was describing her first few days in a new leadership role. She’s starting with a thinking exercise — a strategic review of what’s working, what needs fixing, where are [...]
Toyota’s Dysfunction
When you go slow, it could be you’re being thoughtful or considered, but more often than not, you are waiting for some one else to make a decision. In the case of Toyota’s recent and public failure, it took years for this issue to come to bear and get decided. The company knew the problem [...]
Open Letter to Carol Bartz, Yahoo
Congrats on your new role. For many of us in the tech industry, Yahoo is more than a company, it’s a Silicon Valley icon. By putting in the kind of strong management you represent, I hope the board is signaling the company’s intent to reinvent itself and thrive once again. Your opportunities speak to opportunities for every tech firm, so we’re going to make this an Open Letter in the hope that everyone can learn from the experience you’re about to have.
Creating Velocity thru Strategy
What should you do? Do you stop things? Start things? Answer: yes, to both. Of course you should rethink and reevaluate but if you do that for long you put at risk the current business or effort simply because you didn’t execute what you could have done.
Hope is Not A Strategy
Executives at the helm of companies from small firms to large enterprises spend much of their time thinking about how to drive growth. But putting those thoughts into action can challenge even the most seasoned leader. Often executives focus on the “what” of strategy at the expense of the “how” — neglecting the “how” makes success a long shot.
Avoiding Strategic Failure
I’ve watched strategy being developed within companies like Adobe, Apple, Autodesk, and Nokia. I’ve seen strategy created by individuals. I’ve seen the big suits of Bain and McKinsey at work. I’ve seen it done well, and occasionally I’ve seen it done poorly. Having read more than 100 books that define the best thinking on strategy, I’ve noticed that following the existing methods often doesn’t yield success.
It’s not just the methodology. Here are five reasons strategy fails in businesses:
Is Business a Community?
Yesterday, a debate ensued about whether business is a community. It is not said one party; community is this soft thing and business is fundamentally about the results that a company creates. Results, as in money. That’s it. Bottom line. But is that really the whole story? I would argue that business is about community [...]
Employees and Strategy
For many executives, the two words above don’t go together. Why? Because they think strategy is done in the C-suite. I’m here to tell you that’s old thinking. Life is different now. Status is less relevant. We’re in an era of ideas – and they can, and do, come from all directions. The formal, power-based [...]