Succeeding in a VUCA World – New Approaches to Strategy and Change

Developing strategy and delivering change continue to be a challenge for many organisations. As a result, many leaders are shifting their focus from strategy to agility. The logic is that if their organisations were agile they would be more responsive to change and strategy would not be needed. While there is some merit to this argument, being agile is not …

The Importance of Strategic Leadership in Times of Uncertainty

Without question we are living in a period of great uncertainty. It’s often said, but is no less true, that the context within which organisations operate today is changing at an unprecedented rate. For many leaders this is a challenging time, particularly for those whose careers have progressed during years of relative stability. The one thing we do know is …

Context Is Everything When It Comes To Strategy

Strategy is one of those words that is often overused and frequently misused. What do we really mean by strategy and what is its real purpose? In our book Beyond Default my co-author and I argue that the real purpose of strategy, particularly corporate strategy, is to change the trajectory of an organisation, from one leading it to its ‘default …

Core ideas behind the Beyond Default approach to developing strategy and delivering change

Beyond Default offers a different and innovative approach to developing strategy and delivering change. The approach is based upon a set of core ideas that collectively present a point of view on this important topic. These 20 core ideas are: The context within which an organisation operates is often more powerful than the strategies and resources that its leaders deploy …

Insight into how effective organisations are at developing strategy and delivering change

During a recent webinar participants were asked to give their assessment on how effective they thought their organisations were at developing strategy and delivering change. They were asked six questions to which they responded in a live poll. The results were both interesting and concerning. Interesting as they concurred with the answers I’d got many times before when asking similar …

Should Strategies be Implemented or Operationalised, and what’s the Difference?

While there are many approaches to executing strategy they are all based upon two fundamentally different philosophies. One is where an organisation is ‘pushed’ to its target future. The other is where it is ‘pulled’. Which approach an organisation applies can determine how successful it is in turning strategic intent into operational reality. The ‘push’ approach is usually called implementation. …

How Organisational Capabilities Anchor You to Your Current Trajectory

Ironically, the very capabilities that your organisation has developed over time, and that have made it successful in the past, can be the same 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 …

Project Portfolio Management – An Organisational Capability for Changing Your Trajectory

If an organisation is serious about changing its trajectory, to one that takes it to its target – as opposed to its default – future, then it needs to execute a portfolio of change initiatives. These initiatives – whether they are programmes, projects or operational changes – need to be selected, prioritised, scheduled, reshaped, rescheduled and culled as the journey …

What Can Leaders of Change Learn from World-Class Performers?

It’s often quoted that some 70% of major change initiatives fail to deliver their intended objectives. If this is true, and the risk of failure so high, what can be done to increase the chances of success? In this post David Trafford and Peter Boggis suggest that much can be learned from world-class performers – particularly from ballet where the …

The Purpose of Strategy: To Change an Organisation’s Trajectory

If the purpose of strategy is to change an organisation’s trajectory, from one that is taking it to its default future to one that is not only better but achievable, how are the strategic choices best made and how can the chosen strategy best be implemented? In this post, David Trafford and Peter Boggis present a framework for developing strategy …