What should strategy *feel* like?
DON’T THINK. This is the message that the great sci-fi author Ray Bradbury had taped to his typewriter. He believed that his job, when he sat down to write, wasn’t to have an intellectual experience, but a visceral one. To feel. To live, even. To have the experience of living whilst being sat at the […]
The shocking truth about marketing and strategy
This is a dangerous essay. It’s dangerous for you, because if you only grasp it casually it will take you further away from the truth, rather than closer to it. And it’s dangerous for me, because it risks my work being bracketed into a category which I’ve painstakingly avoided for the past 7 years. The […]
The humility hack – the secret weapon of great CEOs
Everybody agrees that it’s good to be humble. But why? Mostly I think it’s because we believe humility is “nice”. You are a “nice person” if you are humble. You are kind, thoughtful, and gentle. Never mind the fact that humility isn’t necessarily any of these things (it’s perfectly possible to be a humble asshole […]
The big misunderstanding about “brand”
Whatever most people believe about a subject, you can be sure that the exact opposite is true. It’s crazy how often this principle turns out to be accurate. I’d almost call it a law of nature. Or “Smith’s Law” perhaps. On any subject of understanding (as opposed to hard fact), people have an incredible ability […]
How a team of accountants created the greatest brand of all time
Like anyone, when I read a non-fiction book I’m looking for lessons. Stuff I can use, and of course stuff I can bring to you in this newsletter. Naturally I want such lessons to be surprising and counter-intuitive, but even so I wasn’t quite prepared for this one: Wanna create a legendary brand? Then leave […]
The magic of Schwarzenegger Goals
What is the point of a goal? Sounds weird doesn’t it. Like a non-sensical question. When we set a goal, surely the goal itself is the point, right? It’s the thing we want. The thing we’re striving for. The destination. The end. A goal – we assume – doesn’t have any greater purpose than that. […]
The Cringe Test
One of my favourite things is to come up with new ways of explaining old concepts. They say there’s nothing new under the sun, and I think that’s true – but there are new ways of expressing things, and they can be just as valuable. After all, every new expression of an old idea makes […]
How working from home kills strategy
What exactly is wrong with working from home? From what I’ve been able to gather, many organisations are starting to ask this question. It’s not a straight forward one, because the nature of the benefits and drawbacks aren’t symmetrical. The benefits are very direct and obvious. Anyone can see them, and one hardly need make […]
Strategy needs a rebrand – here’s how I’d do it
Strategy, ironically, has crap branding. Branding of course concerns not what something “is”, but rather how something is presented and perceived. How people think of it. And then, in turn, how people use it. So when I say that strategy has shit branding, I mean that it is presented in a way that both makes […]
Are we using AI backwards?
Before we begin, a word of warning: I know very little about AI. Because of this, some of my explanations below may be a bit off-base. Certainly don’t take my word on anything technical – and if you think I’ve got something wrong, feel free to email me back explaining how ignorant I am. However, […]