Here’s how to get your organisation to commit to strategy
If any of you have read my free little ebook Make Companies Without Competitors, or seen my “Love your competitors” talk, you’ll know that central to my philosophy is the idea of non-competition. Contrary to the common metaphor of the market being “battle ground” or “playing field”, where there is implicitly an enemy to be […]
How to do strategy without sacrifice
By now I think we all know the basics. You want a good strategy? Then you need to sacrifice. You need to decide not only what you’re going to focus on, but also what you’re going to neglect. Typically this means deciding what you’re going to allow your competitors to have. Picking the areas you’re going […]
What I learned being fired twice
This is a slightly tricky essay to write. Not for the obvious reason that it brings up potentially embarrassing episodes from my past, but actually for the opposite reason: that these days it’s hard to write about “being fired” without it sounding like you’re bragging. It’s a weird thing, but as we have discussed before, in this perma-revolutionary […]
What nature teaches us about strategy
Many of us are fond of using natural allegories in business. Most of these (such as “viral” or “organic” growth) are so embedded in the vernacular that their natural origins have been forgotten — however, there is one analogy which still draws on the natural world in a very conscious way: Darwinism. Darwinian language — […]
Don’t do this: The reason good strategies fail
A good strategy is not a guarantee of success, for two reasons. The first, as we’ve discussed before, is the unfortunate fact that a good strategy can still be wrong. All strategies are, unavoidably, speculative – and therefore even the best of them may not work quite the way you imagined when they get out […]
My brand is doing great – Do i need a strategy?
One of the things about strategy that makes it so slippery (and occasionally hard to sell), is this: You can get away without it. Don’t get me wrong, you’ll be way better off with a strategy than without. But at the same time it’s not like, say, branding, or IT services, or accountancy, or any […]
Devil on your shoulder: The role of temptation in strategy
Today I want to introduce you to a concept I call “choice gravity”, but which you might know by a slightly more conventional and spicy word: temptation. What does temptation have to do with strategy? One hell of a lot really (hell, in a sense, being the operative word here). How so? Well, I’m sure you’ve […]
The 3 ways to judge a strategy
There are two ways a strategy can fail: By being wrong By not being a strategy The first of these, I’m sorry to say, you can’t do much about. No matter how dazzling your thinking or penetrative your insights, you’ll never really know if it’s going to be effective until after the strategy’s been executed. […]
The crucial difference between imagination and creativity
“I’m not creative”. Have you ever said this? It’s a phrase you hear often, even from founders, which is funny when you think about it, because founders are by definition creative in the most concrete sense. The thing is, for the most part when we say “I’m not creative”, we generally don’t actually mean that. We mean […]
Are you living by lies
The other day I got an insightful bit of feedback on one of these essays from a client (hi Alan), and it really got me thinking. He said: “This is consistent with your philosophy that great strategies are revealed as truths in and of themselves, and not created by the whims of the strategist” Now […]