Setting Your Organization on a Trajectory to an Improved Future
Beyond Default Interview
New Work Revolution, 2 May 2018
In this podcast New Work Revolution’s Brandon Allen explores some of the ideas in David and Peter’s book Beyond Default, including why the majority of strategies and transformation programmes fail to achieve their target outcomes and, more importantly, what can be done to increase the chances of success.
Listen to this podcast on New Work Revolution or iTunes.
How To Develop Your Corporate Strategy
Center for Management & Organization Effectiveness, May 2018
In this blog on how to develop your corporate strategy by The Center for Management & Organization Effectiveness, David Trafford and Peter Boggis offer six key points to keep in mind.
Beyond Default
LID Radio, 18 April 2018
In this podcast LID Radio’s Miro Iliev asks David Trafford and Peter Boggis what motivated them to write Beyond Default and they explore some of the ideas in the book, including the main challenges that leaders face when trying to change their organisation’s trajectory to one that leads to an improved future.
Beyond Default Book Review
Applied Abstractions, 29 March 2018
“A good read for the senior executive in a traditional company charged with making sense of a rapidly changing and uncertain future – in a language and with examples that are understandable and relatively actionable. The authors care about language and use frameworks as illustrations rather than decision engines. Recommended.”
Read the full review.
Confronting your Organisation’s Default Future
Ambition Magazine, April 2018 edition, pages 1, 4, 32-35.
Organisations are on a trajectory to a given future, but leaders can take action to influence this, once the reasons behind it are fully understood.
Beyond Default Book Review
Quality World Magazine, March 2018 edition, page 39.
“The authors have set out a very well-evidenced and thought-provoking book, which gives an in-depth overview of how important strategy is to the long-term success of an organisation. … Advice is also given on how to define an organisation’s path of strategic intent. … The remainder of the book interested me most, as it describes how to make what has been developed as a strategic intent meaningful to all levels of an organisation, then to turn this intent into operational reality.”
The full review is only available to subscribers of Quality World Magazine.
Most strategies don't work! Here's how to have one that does
The Next Ten Years, 26 February 2018
Nick Bush from The Next Ten Years interviews David Trafford on the thinking behind the book Beyond Default. Questions range from “where did the idea for the compelling book come from?” through to “what’s your advice to someone who’s not a CEO on how they can get started?”
Beyond Default Book Review
The HR Director, 16 February 2018
“In a world that has lost sight of the ageless skill of prescience Trafford and Boggis have produced a masterpiece of writing that in less than 300 pages delivers a new and innovative approach to developing, applying and implementing executive strategy. Despite asking question after question; (three in the first sentence of the introduction); the writers have managed to produce a startling piece of writing in which the answers are conspicuous only in their absence. It may have been Voltaire who said, “Judge a man by his questions rather than by his answers” but Trafford and Boggis in their book Beyond Default have taken this to a whole new level of understanding.”
Didn’t See That Coming
The HR Director Magazine, February 2018 edition, pages 48-49
Conventional thinking on strategy is that it begins by defining a compelling vision, complete with big, hairy, audacious, goals (BHAGs). Then follows a plan for achieving the vision that is executed flawlessly. Sounds easy, so why is corporate history littered with so many organisations that have failed to react to change? The evidence indicates that many are not good – and not getting any better – at designing and executing strategy.
This article is only available to subscribers of The HR Director Magazine
The ‘Beyond Default’ Leader
Vunela, 22 January 2018
Being a ‘Beyond Default’ leader is not easy, especially in large complex organisations that over the years have developed the processes, structures and roles aimed at ‘keeping the organisation under control and on track’. But Beyond Default leaders know that these very same bureaucratic processes and structures can ‘anchor’ an organisation to a trajectory that leads to its default future. They also know what it takes to put their organisation on a trajectory that leads to an improved future.
Confronting Your Default Future
Mi Business Mag, 8 January 2018
Individually, each of us has a default future; as do our businesses, families, communities and societies. It’s the place we will end up if we take no action other than that currently planned. If the default future is aligned with your ambition and aspirations, then simply enjoy the experience and be sure to keep on track. If it is not aligned, then a sense of anxiety, frustration and helplessness can result.
Operationalising Ideas
Thinkers50, 28 December 2017
Ideas are important, as without ideas there can be no progress. But not all ideas are good or make a positive contribution to business and society. Some ideas may be interesting – and possibly intellectually stimulating – but are of no other value when it comes to informing organisational strategy and transformational change.
Know Your Default Future
Bloomberg Radio, 28 December 2017
Business leaders must confront their default future, decide what options are available and set their organisation on a trajectory towards a better future, according to David Trafford and Peter Boggis, authors of Beyond Default. They told Daybreak Europe’s Markus Karlsson and Yousef Gamal El-Din that the reasoning behind the success of one organisation over another boils down to strategy. Boggis and Trafford added that CEOs must be aware that firstly, what has made a company successful in the past is not sufficient to guarantee success in the future, and secondly, only when leaders understand the reason why a company is on a particular trajectory are they able to make informed decisions about what to do next.
Listen to this Bloomberg podcast.
How Organisational Capabilities Anchor You to Your Current Trajectory
Formicio, 22 December 2017
Ironically, the very capabilities that your organisation has developed over time, and that has made it successful in the past, can be the ones that are anchoring it to its current trajectory. If the purpose of strategy is to change an organisation’s trajectory – to one that leads to an improved future – then the influence of these potentially ‘anchoring’ organisational capabilities needs to be assessed and actions taken to weaken some and eliminate others.
Beyond Default Book Review: Don’t be a Failure by Default
Executive Magazine, November 2017
“Less of a guidebook on how to get rich and more a philosophical treatise on how to mentally approach change, the co-authors provide plenty to think about, all explained in a way even the non-geeky will understand.”
Read the review on page 74.
Why Most Strategies Fail to Deliver
MBA World, 7 November 2017
There are many reasons why strategies fail: the maturity of the organisation, the industry sector in which it operates and the level of recent success are all contributing factors. There are, however, a few common mistakes that organisations and their leaders make.
Why is Transformational Change so Difficult?
Marketing and Networking University, 25 October 2017
If change is the new norm then organisations need to get better at putting the critical conditions for change success in place. If not, then an increasing number of organisations will destroy wealth, disappoint customers, impoverish investors, damage careers and destroy livelihoods.
Beyond Default Gets Five-star Book Review
Readers’ Favourite, 13 October 2017
“The writing and content of this book is excellent….” “This is an excellent book for leaders and business executives.”
What’s Your Default Strategy
Dialogue Review, 14 September 2017
All organisations need a strategy; indeed all organisations have a strategy – though they may not realise it. It may not be explicitly defined or clearly articulated, but the daily decisions and actions of an organisation’s leaders reflect that strategy. The only question is whether the strategy is intentional or by default.