Below you'll find a list of all posts that have been categorized as “Blogs”
Those familiar with the Beyond Default approach to strategy will know that the essential purpose of strategy is to change the trajectory of an organisation, from one that’s taking it to its default future – which is a place it will end up if it takes no action other than that currently planned – to one that leads to an …
Conventional thinking on strategy is that you need to start by defining a vision, a future state that defines what you want your organisation to become, achieve or contribute. While visions are important – as are mission and purpose statements – they rarely live up to expectations. All too often they state the obvious: ‘to be better’, ‘to do no …
Getting a health check is always a good thing. It can tell you whether you’re in good shape or if you need to give attention to things before they get worse. It’s the same with strategy. A health check can tell whether your strategy is in good shape or if action is needed to put it back on track. While …
Developing strategy is a process of deciding on the trajectory an organisation needs to take to avoid its default future – which is the place it will end up if it takes no action other than that currently planned. It involves deciding the strategic intent – which is what an organisation aims to become or achieve – and the trajectory …
If the essential purpose of strategy is to change the trajectory of an organisation, from one taking it to its default future to one that leads to an improved future, there are three aspects that need to be aligned. These are the WHAT, the HOW and the WHO. Not only do they need to be aligned when the strategy is …
The words strategy and plan are often used interchangeably. People talk about their ‘plan’ or ‘strategy’ as if they were the same thing and some, in an attempt to make their plan more important, call it a ‘strategic plan’. The reality is that a plan and strategy have very different meanings: they are based upon different decision criteria and contain …
In early 2020 the context of the majority of the world’s population, and millions of businesses across the globe, changed. The exogenous force that caused this significant context shift was, of course, COVID-19. It was a context shift that no one foresaw, nobody wanted and no one was prepared for. While governments struggled to respond and health services became overstretched, …
For many years we have known that the brain is a great pattern maker. In fact, the only way for it to process all the data it receives is to drop information into pre-prepared pathways or patterns. It needs a ‘default’ method for processing information to cope. Our best guess is that the brain handles around 11 million bits of …
When we’re asked the question “why are some organisations better at strategy and change than others”, without hesitation we always answer “because they have greater collective leadership”. It’s simply because we’ve seen this type of leadership in organisations that are more successful at strategy and change, than in those that aren’t. We’re then often asked “which organisations are these?”. The …
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 …
