Strategy should be joyful

Somewhere along the way, business has acquired an unwritten rule that goes something like this: Creativity and artistry are only to be applied in the media elements of company, specifically its advertising and branding. Advertising and branding, the external media “dressing” of a business, are the acceptable canvas for fun, playful, exuberant, emotional creative thinking, […]

Your business does not care what you want

As some of my geekier readers may have noticed, I very rarely talk about “goals” in this newsletter.  Indeed I very rarely talk about goals in my projects either.  Goals just aren’t a particularly big thing in my interpretation of strategy – which is pretty weird when you think about it, because by most definitions […]

Operational vs. Human strategies

I suppose that if you pressed me on it, I’d say I consider myself a bit of an expert on strategy.  It is my job after all.  However I should also stress that the purpose of these essays isn’t just to teach you, but to teach me.  Sometimes complexities arise in the field that give […]

Waitrose, the cost of living, and the lure of the trend trap

What are trends for? In the minds of most businesses, trends are see as things to follow.  They represent the movement of the market in a certain direction, and thus to follow the trend is to follow the money. The formula is pretty basic: “X is starting to become more important to consumers, therefore if […]

Why is strategic thinking so rare?

I saw an old Peter Drucker quote today which really got me thinking: “Efficiency is doing things right.  Effectiveness is doing the right things”. Efficiency versus effectiveness.  Doing things right, versus doing the right things.  Two deceptively similar modes of working, which are in fact miles apart.  One means doing something well, with quality, with skill.  And […]

There is no good or bad – only congruent or incongruent

The other day a reader alerted me to a funny little scam being pulled, surprisingly, by Apple.  Apparently in the weeks running up to Christmas, they have been known to book all cargo flights out of China, partially to allow for rushes on their stock, but also to chuck a spanner in the works for […]

The fatal flaw of trend-based brands

If you’re a founder, you probably got into the game partly through a desire for freedom.  Being your own boss and all that good stuff. Central to this desire is a yearning for control.  To be in control not only of your time, but of your destiny.  To incubate yourself from the arbitrary whims of […]

The correct use of a “why” within strategy

The following is an excerpt from a book I’m working on, called: No Bullshit Strategy: A founder’s guide to forming a strategy that actually works I hope to have it published by the end of this year, and obviously will promote it on here shamelessly, so hopefully it will be of interest to some of […]

Simple, easy, fun: The power of unconscious strategy

I routinely say that the vast majority of businesses “don’t have a strategy”, but if I’m honest, that’s not entirely accurate. In reality all businesses do, in fact, have a strategy.  It’s just that for most of them it’s unconscious. An “unconscious strategy” might seem like a contradiction in terms, given that a strategy is a […]

5 tips on executing strategy

You’ve heard me say it before, and you’ll hear me say it again: A strategy is only as good as the action it provokes. It’s not an intellectual discipline, it’s a practical one.  Aggressive, confident, coordinated implementation – that’s the actual product here.  Indeed I sometimes think that rather than talking about “strategy” as this […]