Much has been written about strategy, and no doubt more will be written in the future. However, the many thousands of articles, academic papers and books that have been written on the subject have done little to increase the chances of organisations finding the key to sustained success, particularly in today’s increasingly volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous (VUCA) world. While …
Strategy Execution – Establishing the Conditions for Success
The purpose of strategy execution is to turn strategic intent into operational reality. It’s the series of decisions and actions aimed at changing an organisation’s trajectory, from one taking it to its default future to one that takes it to an improved future. These decisions and actions are usually undertaken within some form of transformation programme. However, all the evidence …
Do You Have the Cognitive Skills for Collective Leadership?
In a previous post on Collective Leadership we asked the question ‘Are you Practising Collective Leadership?’ To help answer this question we suggested that you looked for a set of behaviours and assessed the degree to which they were practised across your leadership team. This post asks a complementary question ‘Do you have the cognitive skills needed for these behaviours?’. …
Seven Common Strategy Traps – And How To Avoid Them
Developing and executing effective strategy is never easy, especially in today’s increasingly volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous (VUCA) world. It’s something all organisations do, but some do it better than others. Developing and executing good strategy is important as it ultimately determines the fate of your organisation. But why are some organisations better at it than others? One reason is …
Has COVID-19 killed strategy?
In the Foreword to our book Beyond Default – Setting Your Organization On A Trajectory To An Improved Future Don Tapscott says that ‘over the last few decades strategy has been in and out of fashion – for many businesses that followed the trends, mainly out’. He then goes on to say that ‘a number of factors are conspiring today …
Mediaspace: interview with David Trafford
In this short Mediaspace video interview, David Trafford shares his thoughts on the challenges COVID-19 has brought in respect to developing strategy and delivering change. He also offers three pieces of advice to professionals in the media space who are navigating their way through these challenging times. Watch the full interview.
The Case for Greater Collective Leadership
The last chapter of our book Beyond Default – Setting Your Organization On A Trajectory To An Improved Future is called It All Starts With Collective Leadership. The reason for this is that without collective leadership an organisation has very little chance of having a collective strategy, and without a collective strategy it has very little chance of successfully changing …
Are you Practising Collective Leadership?
Collective leadership is a style of leadership where multiple individuals exercise their leadership roles within a group – and then the entire group provides leadership to the wider organisation. It’s a fluid and flexible approach to leadership, where roles and resultant accountabilities evolve in response to changing circumstances. As a result, the power of a leadership team practising collective leadership …
Operating Principles for Collective Leadership
If you believe your organisation would benefit from greater collective leadership then how can it be established? One of the most effective ways is to introduce a set of operating principles, where an operating principle is a conscious choice about how an organisation has decided to operate. It’s a conscious choice between two, or more, equally valid alternatives. In the …
Ignore Exogenous Forces At Your Peril
The influence of exogenous forces can rapidly change the context within which organisations operate, and the future they can bring. The recent COVID-19 Coronavirus is an example of one such exogenous force. A force that in recent months has dramatically changed the context of millions of people and thousands of organisations across the globe. What’s more, the impact of COVID-19 …