If You Hire Big Consulting to Design Your Strategy, You Might As Well Be Fired
For decades, the saying went: “No one ever got fired for hiring McKinsey or BCG.” These firms, and others like them, represented the gold standard…
How Leaders Shape Culture without the Fluff
One of the surest ways to burn money is to invest in a culture initiative. Culture often gets treated as something that can be improved…
10 uncomfortable truths every leader should read
When you’ve been around long enough, you see patterns in behavior, individual and organizational. And you hear people say things, and repeat them again and…
What effective team development looks like – and what you should avoid
If you ask 10 CEOs whether they’d like their business to have a winning strategy, you’d probably get 11 “yes” responses. Everyone wants their business…
Why ELTs struggle to focus on strategy and how to overcome It
Executive Leadership Teams (ELTs) often find it challenging to shift gears, from day-to-day operations to long-term strategy. This brings a number of challenges, the most…
Avoiding the Tyranny of the Urgent – The Power of Strategy Governance
“Here we go again.” This was my initial thought when a client was reluctant to establish structures for strategy implementation. I had seen similar hesitation before…
The Hardest Thing to get Right – How to Solve Your Communication Issue
When a client had just completed a merger, they were shooting for the top spot in the market. While the physical aspects of the merger,…
Vision or no Vision – The Art of Storytelling in Strategy
When it comes to designing strategy, I often see two approaches collide. Vision-driven strategy versus problem-driven strategy. Vision-driven strategy starts with describing a desired status…
From Time Teller to Clock Builder – How I Failed to Lead and Started Over
The first leadership job typically comes to a person because they are great at what they do. And because they master their subject, someone thinks…
How Strategic Leadership Development Creates RoI
Developing effective leaders is a critical component of any successful organization. But simply training individuals in leadership skills doesn’t cut it. For maximum impact –…
Dog Eat Dog and Tree Huggers: Why the Wrong Environments Can’t Create Good Strategy
The environment in which we design strategy matters more than leaders often realize. The leadership culture, and the wider business culture, dictate the nature of…
In memoriam: Dr. Mark Goulston
If you didn’t get to know Mark, the resources I share in this article will make your life richer. Mark built an incredible legacy, the…
The Essence of Executive Leadership: Nailing Business Strategy and Culture
What’s the job of an executive leader? So many thoughts come to mind. But in a nutshell it comes down two two things: they’ve got…
Operational Scalability: How To Set Up Systems, Procedures, And People To Prepare A Business To Scale
This is an excerpt from an interview with Alex Brueckmann that was first published by Authority Magazine – read the full interview here. In order…
100 Dynamic Leaders Award: Facilitating Strategies that Impact Businesses
This feature of Alex Brueckmann is part of Exeleon Magazine’s listing of The 100 Most Dynamic Leaders of 2023. Check out the entire issue and…
What Wayne Gretzky Teaches Executives About Strategy
Wayne Gretzky, often hailed as the greatest hockey player of all time, holds a legacy that transcends the rink. Beyond his exceptional skills on the…
Eliminating “Let’s Agree to Disagree”: Fostering Constructive Dialogue for Effective Strategy
Strategic decision-making is a crucial aspect that determines the success or failure of organizations. In executive meetings and boardrooms, diverse perspectives often collide. Sometimes they…
Overcoming Doubts: 7 Challenges Leaders Face with Business Strategy
Leadership demands not only vision but the confidence to act on that vision. Yet, many leaders find themselves wrestling with doubt, which can hinder their…
How to Solve Your Company’s Communication Issue
When a client had just completed a merger, they were shooting for the top spot in the market. While the physical aspects of the merger,…
Unleashing Your Executive Personal Brand: Elevating Success and Making Your Mark
(Watch the keynote on personal branding for executives and entrepreneurs that I gave at the World Marketing Summit) Personal branding has become a game-changer for…
Building People Skills Is No Longer Enough
Executive Summary: The dangers of neglecting strategic skills in leadership development Leadership development programs have long been mainly about so-called soft skills. Participants learned how…
From $1mn to $100mn: The Top 5 Barriers That High-Growth Companies Need to Overcome
Scaling a high-growth startup from $1million to a lofty 100 million is a monumental achievement. The path to such exponential growth is riddled with numerous…
Busting Business Myths: Four Misconceptions That You Should Let Go
Business myths are often perpetuated and become widely accepted as truth, despite being far from accurate. Let’s debunk four common myths: that work-life balance as…
Nurturing Success: The Dynamic Dance Between Strategy and Culture
In the wild world of business, catchphrases run rampant, sparking debates and raising eyebrows. One such catchphrase that tends to get a reaction out of…
Let’s Take the Heat out of WFH
OpenAI CEO Altman calls work-from-home an “experiment” that was a “mistake”. Well, the conversation about WFH has become increasingly contentious. More and more corporate leaders…
What So Many Get Wrong About Business Strategy – And How To Fix It
Business strategy is a widely misunderstood concept – which is terrifying given that it is also one of the most important aspects of any successful…
Empowerment: 5 Common Misconceptions We Should Leave Behind
Everyone talks about it, everyone wants it, but not everyone understands it. Empowerment has become a buzzword in the world of organizational management. Empowerment is…
5 Essential Components of Personalized Leadership Development for Maximum ROI
The traditional one-size-fits-all approach to leadership development is no longer effective in supporting the diverse range of skills required of modern leaders. To ensure that…
Why the Most Accomplished Leaders Work with Executive Coaches
Even the world’s top athletes know that they can’t do it alone. They work with coaches who aren’t necessarily better at their sport, but are…
5 Tips to Ensure Your Leadership Development Efforts Support Business Strategy
The amount of money businesses waste on poorly designed leadership development is staggering. Too often, it is only when business realize that there is no…