Four useful ways to think about “insight”

Is “strategy” the shittest word in business? No!  Although it is indeed misunderstood, and although it’s used to cloak all manner or useless jargony guff, it can only be considered prince of the bullshit realm. The king?  There can be no question: Insight. Yes, in comparison to this slippery bugger “strategy” seems solid as a […]

7 sticky statements for effortless strategic thinking

To be frank with you, I don’t really say anything new in these “news”letters. New to you possibly, but not new to the world at large.  Now this isn’t because I’m uniquely unoriginal, but rather because when it comes to strategy, there isn’t anything new to be said.  Not by me, not by anyone. It […]

Why post-rationalised strategies are better

OK, here’s an obvious thing that you should have picked up in my writing by now: Leverage comes from doing things differently. Basic right?  And who could disagree with that.  But we should ask the follow up question – do you really believe it?  Because although your mouth may say yes, your actions and your […]

What is “insight speed” and how do you get there?

In my consulting work with clients, I have two practices which I’ve come to realise are very unusual: I favour long meetings (2+ hours) over short I favour public meetings (cafe, bar, etc.) over private My typical client engagement is generally something like a 2.5 hour chit chat in a buzzy coffee shop or members’ […]

The 3 step process I use on every project

People often say that strategy is both “art and science”. I do agree, but I think there’s a better way of putting it: Strategy is intuition and analysis. Both are crucial, because each does a job the other can’t. Intuition allows you to take a holistic view of the situation, and generate truly original and […]

The ONE word missing from almost every strategy I see

As you can imagine, I get a lot of people sending me strategies for feedback. And thanks to the fact that most of them have followed the steps in my book, they tend to be pretty good.  Definitely not the monstrosities that you normally see under the label of “strategy”. But there is one problem […]

How to 10x your strategy with one conversation

When you’re developing a strategy for your business, you know who the most helpful person is? It’s not your co-founder. It’s not your head of strategy. It’s not your head of marketing. It’s not your consultant. It’s not even your customer. No, the most helpful person – who nobody ever bothers to involve in the […]

This is a leader’s biggest responsibility – but nobody talks about it…

There’s a simple exercise that you’ve just got to try. Not only try in fact; you must make it a ritual.  Every year, or half year even, you should be doing this, recording the results – and, hopefully, the progress. It will tell you more about the strength of your organisation’s strategy (and thus its […]

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 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 […]