The strategic difference that really counts

Difference, as we know, is at the heart of strategy. In any realm – business, politics, military, personal – it is about walking a different path to the others around you.  Indeed we might say that’s its very definition: Strategy is that which only you do. Naturally, you will be the same as others in […]

Sugar, sex, and the supernormal

Following my piece a few months back on the phenomenon of concentration – the great invisible force shaping pretty much everything right now – I wanted to do another similar piece on a different macro-trend. The purpose of such pieces, which of course aren’t strategy how-to guides like some others, is to give you a […]

How successful brands die

Understandably we talk a lot here about growth.  That’s what most founders are interested in.  However, this is should only be one part of their agenda.  The other, less discussed, is survival.  Simply sticking around and maintaining your brand’s position – hopefully long into the future. When it comes to the growth side of the […]

The Most Underrated Strategic Tool

We are all cats in boxes. This is an analogy I once heard (can’t remember where) which really speaks to me, and has a lot of importance for smart and strategic thinking. Expanded, the concept is something like this. Imagine you have a cat in a box, with air holes punched in it so it […]

Strategy can never be “scientific”

When you’re facing a task that doesn’t have a solution that you know will work at the outset. There is no “strategy” to fixing a muffler, or flying a jet, or tying pigtails; there is just a method. Strategy is reserved for the many walks of life where there are no neat and tidy solutions […]