Strategy

The Business of Habits

The Business of Habits
By Alex Brueckmann

Habits are something mighty. So mighty they can destroy you: drinking, smoking, doing drugs, eating junk food. Other habits are less dangerous but harmful nonetheless: excessive social media consumption, binge watching your favorite streaming site, not getting enough sleep. Then there are healthy habits – they make us happy and can even help us become champions: physical exercise, playing an instrument, spending quality time with your spouse, kids, family, friends.

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Strategy

Let’s unbuzz the buzzword Strategy

Let’s unbuzz the buzzword “Strategy”
What Strategy is, and what it is not:
If you asked five of your colleagues what ‘strategy’ is, the odds are that you will receive six different answers. They might range from “a plan of how we create value” or “our priorities for the next few years” to “our approach to winning against our competitors” and “a framework against which we make decisions”. There is nothing wrong with these answers; and as a matter of fact, if you research business literature for a definition of the term strategy, I am pretty sure that you will find suggestions that match those ideas to a large degree. So, which definition is the most accurate? Who’s right?

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Culture

The culture imperative for executives

The culture imperative for executives – The supercharged organization

Culture is everywhere. Every organization, department or team has one. They either consciously created it, honed it over time into what some organizations call their ‘secret sauce’, as in ‘not copyable by the competition’. Or they have a culture that just appeared, accidentally, whatever it might be. Trust me, you don’t want an accidental culture. I’ve been there, I have seen what these cultures can look like and what they do to people. In accidental cultures, there are hardly any boundaries, the doors are open to all kinds of behaviours, even toxic ones like lying, cynicism, gossip and avoidance of accountability. As a result, people will burn out and leave. This is true for all kinds of organizations whether non-profit or for-profit.

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How corporate jargon kills performance
Organizational Identity

How corporate jargon kills performance

How corporate jargon kills performance – One of the most interesting characteristics I try to uncover at the start of a collaboration with a client is this: the amount of corporate BS and jargon that people use in conversations and meetings. While this might sound odd for a consultant like me (I realize that us strategy guys use a lot of weird lingo ourselves), but it tells me more about a team’s ability to reach results than you might think. Apart from being an annoying habit, why bother? Because corporate BS and jargon are more than just annoying. They are real performance killers.

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https://www.pexels.com/@olly
Learning & Development

You have a 90% chance of being in a company that has a skills gap

You have a 90% chance of being in a company that has a skill gap. You also have a 60% chance of being in one that wastes money on learning and development. Recent research shows that 90% of companies are aware that they will have a significant skill gap in the years to come. They see that they don’t have the capabilities today that they will need in the near future to be able to deal with the challenges that are coming their way. While this is the overwhelming majority, at the same time, only 16% believe that they know how to close these skill gaps. Essentially, they feel they know what they need but they don’t know what to do about it.

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Legacy
Legacy

What is your legacy?

You will leave one behind – if you want to or not!
Have you ever thought about the legacy you want to leave behind as a leader? About the moral imperative of leadership? About how you want to be remembered? Once these questions have entered your head, it is impossible to unthink these thoughts. And that’s where you might want to begin to explore and shape your own legacy. Legacy is like culture: every individual and every organization has one. It is either consciously honed over time, into a secret sauce that distinguishes your competitiveness and offering from others in the marketplace, or it somehow comes to life, subconsciously, by accident, and just happens. Maybe it occurs somewhere in between with some efforts here and there, not really seamless but kind of alive, just like Frankenstein’s Monster. So, what does that mean? You will leave a legacy, if you want to or not, so you better start building it consciously.

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Purpose, Strategy

Why your business strategy needs purpose – and why you need a solid strategy in the first place

I first got in touch with strategy as a discipline in business school and found the subject incredibly boring. It was taught with little corporate context and had no visible connection to my own life. To me, at that point in time, strategy was all about theoretical frameworks without connection to the outside world. However, early in my post-university career this perception changed rapidly – and I realized how conscious leadership and strategy are intertwined, and how both are essential ingredients to business success.

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Organizational Identity, Values

Organizational values – Let’s play a game of buzzword bingo!

Organizational Values are an interesting, fun to explore subject. I challenge you to play a game of buzzword bingo with me. Take out a pen and paper and write down the first ten positively attributed potential organizational values you can think of. I will do the same. Next, check out websites of organizations or brands you regularly interact with. Read their value statements. The first to hit all buzzwords on their list wins. Ready? Go!

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Leadership, Vision

Imagining the post-pandemic corporation: what makes a great vision?

Let’s think ahead. With the Covid19 vaccination roll out in full swing, leaders are now imagining the post-pandemic organization. Visualizing how your business should look like some years down the road and distilling this future into a vision statement is your first step. Formulating a new vision, at some point in the process, leaders inevitably ask the question: “What makes a vision a great vision?” Since every organization has their specific history and context there is no generic answer to that. But there are some guidelines that will help you craft a powerful vision statement. I pulled these together, based on the vision statements I’ve helped clients create over more than a decade.

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