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 …
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 …
The True Dynamics Behind Failing Corporate Strategy
Strategy is important. It’s important because good strategy provides focus and guidance on what leaders need to do to make their organisation successful in the long term. But how is strategy developed? Is it something the CEO instinctively believes in or is it the result of a formal process led by the head of strategy and supported by external consultants? …
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 …
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. …