Bite Sized Business Tips
2 minute reads for the values-led business leader
Snippets for purpose and values-led business leaders about meeting our responsibilities to our team, customers, owners, communities and suppliers. Context is everything, so these aren't dogma - rather a stimulus for thought. Subscribe below.
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Where strategy goes to die #8 – A masterpiece of spreadsheets, not humans
A strategy articulated by the most beautiful and elegant diagram of neatly-fitting geometric shapes is often laid waste by the less elegant actions of totally ungeometrically-shaped and unpredictable objects. Humans. The military's long known this. The noted and successful Prussian general military strategist Von Clausewitz based much of his strategy ...
Mess in your strategy is normal
"No one should develop a strategy without taking into account the effects of organizational friction. Yet we continue to be surprised and frustrated when it manifests itself. We tend to think everything has gone wrong when in fact everything has gone normally." This from Stephen Bungay's excellent book on getting ...
5301 trees and 7 women entrepreneurs
Beyond the Quarter's mission is to create a world where business serves humanity. We help leaders build companies that are human, profitable and sustainable. So our very reason for existing is to positively contribute.In addition, in 2021 we undertook 2 initiatives which align with our core purpose and work of ...
On Boris, on values, on apologies and on leadership
Liz Truss this morning said in interview that there are more important things to focus on than whether Boris Johnson broke lockdown rules. This debacle is a treasure trove of lessons on values, on apologies, and on leadership. Values I tell all companies I work with to get their values ...
Being authentic is not the most important thing
The "Be Authentic" religion has always troubled me. Dogmatic. Non-negotiable. Supreme. I don't buy it. It's not the most important thing, because it positions your "authenticity" as more important than the collective good. "Be authentic" is a selfish mantra. The top of the hierarchy isn't to be authentic. It is ...
Where Your Strategy Goes to Die #7 – Comedy without the humour
We all know someone who never lets the truth get in the way of a good story. Many of us have elected those people into national office. But look inside a strategy session, and you'll see grown women and men not letting reality interfere with their strategic goal. Why let ...
Thinking and Saying is the Easy Part
Coming up with a strategy is easy. Articulating values is easy. Defining a company purpose is easy. Articulating them well is much harder. But hardest of all? *Doing* them. Making them real. Mostly because it takes some planning, a process, discipline and a team to take them from words to ...
A Special Place to work
A New Year's wish for all of us. There’s a Special Place to work. One that is exceptionally rare, and often only temporary. It’s a place where the leaders understand that servant leadership is not a badge to show off for the world to know what a great leader they ...
Where Your Strategy Goes to Die #6 – No Explicit Time to Do It
Where Your Strategy Goes to Die No. 6 - Not giving it explicit timeAm I the only one who loves this time between Christmas and New Year for work? I don't have meetings. I don't usually do a full day. But the time I have is spent in thinking bigger.It's ...
Where Your Strategy Goes to Die #5 – Net Zero by 2050
Where Your Strategy Goes to Die #5 - Net Zero by 2050The challenge with Net Zero by 2050, as many point out, is that it creates no urgency. It is too far away for people to feel the need to act. This is why "the decisive decade" - what we ...
Where Your Strategy Goes to Die #4 – The PowerPoint Cemetery
PowerPoint lures many a finely-honed strategy into its lair, where it then suffocates all life from it. And the ugliest of those deaths even have spreadsheets copied into the slide decks. PowerPoints give us a feeling of having structured something. Given it shape. Made a declaration. Add a spreadsheet, and ...
Where Your Strategy Goes to Die #3 – Playing the field
You've put the ring on your strategy's finger as a leadership team. But no sooner you've walked out the room than a member of the leadership team presses you with an attractive-looking opportunity that brings in a number. But it doesn't align. "Yes, I know we said we'd focus on ...