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…
What the Heck is a Strategy anyway?
A couple of days ago, I posed this question to my LinkedIn network. There was a flood of responses that unveiled the essence of strategy…
Blaming Employees – The Corporate Gaslighting Epidemic
The blind pursuit of productivity has led to an epidemic of corporate gaslighting. At the heart of this lies a fundamental flaw: when leaders fail…
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…
Two Must-Have Resources To Design More Impactful Strategy
Two approaches have proven particularly effective to start aligning leadership teams at the beginning of a strategy and identity process: Combining a 360-degree feedback and…
How to Write a Great Vision Statement
Most vision statements I’ve seen in fact aren’t vision statements. They are aspirations, inspirations, or slogans. Something businesses would publish on their websites. But nowhere…
Why is there so much Strategy Talk, yet so little Great Strategy?
In my first book, Secrets of Next Level Entrepreneurs, I made the point that business strategy is a must-have hard skill for leaders. No matter…
The Fish Stinks from its Head: When Boards of Directors Cause More Harm Than Good
The fish stinks from its head. A sentence describing that issues in a business can usually be traced back to the executive table. And that’s…
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…
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…
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…
6 Essential Ingredients for Exceptional Customer Experiences
Exceptional customer experiences are the bedrock of small and big businesses looking to stand out in the market. These experiences transcend mere transactions and create…
Designing a Business Strategy – Between Foresight and Signalling
A business strategy typically addresses a mid-term time horizon of three to five years. Businesses should also explore what lies before and beyond this timeframe. To…
Moving Beyond Purpose: Aligning Strategy and Impact for Meaningful Change
Purpose has become a popular buzzword in many organizations, with companies proudly proclaiming their commitment to noble causes. However, merely having a purpose is not…
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…
Boost Your Chances for Success: The Benefits of Establishing a Strategy and Enterprise PMO
A few reasons stand out when we analyze why organizations fail to design and implement business strategy, from unaligned leadership to management systems that don’t…
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…
Business Strategy vs. Strategic Planning: Why Confusing Them Can Lead to Disaster
Preparing a meal and then eating it are two different activities. Both are needed to avoid going hungry. If you prepare dinner and then don’t…
Emotions in Business: How to Turn Fear into Success with a Clear Strategy
Being responsible for a business can be a whirlwind of emotions, from the excitement of a new opportunity to the fear of not being able…
Strategize with Heart: The Role of Emotions in Designing Business Strategy
When it comes to business strategy, people tend to think of numbers, data, and logical decision-making. But what many don’t realize is that emotions play…
How Strategy Empowers You and Your Business
My life is a reflection of the power of strategy. I grew up as a working class kid in the 80s and early 90s in…
Why Porsche Is Flying High, And Boeing Isn’t
Volkswagen, Porsche’s parent company, is planning to take Porsche public. Investors expect it to be one of Europe’s largest-ever listings; the IPOs could raise more…
The Four Winning Mindsets for your Breakthrough Life
The Four Winning Mindsets for your Breakthrough Life In our current times of transformation, global crises, and search for meaning, mindset is more important than…
How Fear and Complacency Stand in the Way of Your Strategy
How Fear and Complacency Stand in the Way of Your Strategy By Alex Brueckmann A friend recently told me how much he enjoyed riding the ancient tractor
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
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
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
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