Stop confusing strategy and brand strategy

When I tell people I help companies with their “strategy” the response I invariably get is “what kind of strategy?”.  This is because people are familiar with isolated subsets of strategy (social media strategy, sales strategy, recruitment strategy, etc.), but they aren’t familiar with “company strategy” as a whole. This “holistic” strategy, which sits at the top […]

What are non-value strategies?

My definition of business strategy – which runs through all these pieces like a thread – is simple: It’s the unique value the business seeks to bring to the market. Businesses are nothing more than vehicles for value exchange, therefore it stands to reason that if you maximise the value you give, you’ll maximise the […]

Does culture *actually* eat strategy for breakfast?

Before getting into this, let me point you in the direction of the always-worthwhile Bread & Jam Festival, where I’m speaking in a couple of weeks. If you’re going to be in London and fancy swinging by I have a 20% off discount with your name on it right here: www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/243627625787/?discount=BASIC20 Now on with the business at hand… […]

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 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.  […]