strategy

9EOI, Executive Leadership, Strategy

Why Strategy Fails—And How To Make Sure Yours Doesn’t

Every year, executive teams around the world spend months crafting strategies—only to find, 12 months later, that they’ve barely moved the needle. The numbers don’t lie: More than 70% of strategies fail to deliver their intended results. The issue isn’t usually the strategy itself. It’s what happens—or more often doesn’t happen—after strategy design ends. Having worked with […]

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Culture, Executive Leadership, Leadership, Learning & Development, Organizational Identity, Strategy

Your strategy isn’t landing? Here’s why.

If you’ve been in my community for even a little while, you’ll have seen me mention the 9EOI Strategy Certification.  And it occurred to me that while the name makes sense to me, you might be wondering, “9EOI?  What the heck does that mean?” 😄 Fair question. It stands for Nine Elements of Organizational Identity.

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Leadership, Learning & Development, Strategy

A leader’s dilemma: Expected to lead strategy but without the know how to do so effectively

The gap between leadership expectations and support simply blows my mind. Most leaders rise to their positions through deep subject matter expertise. If their organizations are forward-thinking, they may also invest in leadership development to help them grow into their roles. But when it comes to strategy, arguably one of the most critical leadership skills,

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Executive Leadership, Leadership, Strategic Thinking, Strategy

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 for corporate strategy. But recently, a seismic shift is shaking this narrative. A top executive I know of was recently unceremoniously removed by their board—not for incompetence or malfeasance, but

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Storytelling, Strategy, Vision

Problem vs vision: what you should ground your strategy in

When it comes to designing strategy, I see two approaches collide. Vision-driven strategy versus problem-driven strategy. Vision-driven strategy starts with describing a desired status quo, at some point in the future, for example 3-5 years from now. Problem-driven strategy, on the other hand, aims to define and address the biggest immediate hurdle to overcome to

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Executive Leadership, Leadership, Strategy

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 obvious ones is that the No.1 ELT responsibility is shaping strategy and culture. No-one else can take this job off their plates. Here are the main reasons behind this struggle

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Executive Leadership, Storytelling, Strategy

Aligning Employees on Strategy – The Art of Strategic Dialogues

Why do strategies fail? Apart from making wrong choices, one topic stands out: failure to engage teams and help them understand a new strategy. Strategy communication is so crucial, yet few companies truly nail it.  Before you can link individual roles, responsibilities, and targets to the strategy, people need to understand what the strategy means

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Board of Directors, Corporate Governance, Leadership, Strategy

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 – and the negative consequences of lacking strategy governance. Neglecting governance – reasons vary, see below – is a bad idea. Without strategy governance, leaders and staff often get distracted

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Executive Leadership, Performance, Strategy

Great Teams Create Great Strategy. But Most Teams aren’t Teams.

Think about strategy conversations as a seed. And think about your team environment as soil. If the seed falls on toxic or infertile soil, and nothing will grow from it, but weeds. Jon Katzenbach and Douglas Smith conceptualized the team performance curve, a J-shaped graph, illustrating five levels of teamwork. Unless you become at least

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Communcation, Leadership, Organizational Identity, Strategy

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, such as housing and IT, went well, the cultural merger was dragging behind. The company struggled to overhaul work procedures and create a general work philosophy across all units. As

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Leadership, Storytelling, Strategy, Vision

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 quo, at some point in the future, for example 3-5 years from now. Problem-driven strategy, on the other hand, aims to define and address the biggest immediate hurdle to overcome

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Foresight, Strategy

Defining the Big Bets – The Power of Strategic Foresight

A business strategy typically addresses a mid-term time horizon, often three to five years. Here’s the issue: the shorter the timeframe, the less likely will your strategy create real competitive advantage. Winning in your market requires you to look beyond the immediate strategy cycle. To define the big bets. Foresight involves understanding longer-term developments beyond

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9EOI, Leadership, Strategy

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 the expert would make a great leader, teaching others how to do it. That someone often doesn’t understand much about leadership in the first place. Subject matter expertise has little

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Leadership, Learning & Development, Strategy

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 – and return on investment – development programs must be integrated with an organization’s business strategy. 15% Improvement in Organizational Performance Organizations that link leadership development to their business goals see

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Learning & Development, Strategic Thinking, Strategy

5 Habits of Strategic Thinkers to Boost Your Influence

Strategic thinking is a key skill for leaders and executives. Almost every job ad out there lists it as a requirement. Here are 5 key habits of strategic thinkers to help you get your head around the question: what is strategic thinking? 1. Practise Purposeful Networking Strategic thinking involves curiosity and learning from others. I

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Executive Leadership, Learning & Development, Strategy

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 a team assessment. These tools address individual leadership challenges and create transparency about a team’s level of functionality. Functional team consisting of conscious leaders will dare to create strategy beyond

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