Strategic thinking for leadership teams.
25 years helping leadership teams build and execute strategy. Monthly writing on execution, capability, and the discipline that closes the gap between the strategic plan and what actually happens in the field.
11 Lessons from 15 Years in Business: What I Wish I'd Known Sooner
What 15 years of building a business actually teaches you — including the parts no framework prepares you for.
Systems Over Goals: How Management Systems Are the Backbone of Strategy Execution
Why the 12 management systems underneath your strategy matter more than the goals sitting on top of them.
When Waiting Becomes the Riskiest Move: A New Framework for Leading Through Uncertainty
The practical framework for creating momentum when the future isn't clear enough to plan around.
The Strategic Compound Interest That Multiplies Your Business Results
How daily strategic discipline compounds into results that look impossible from the outside.
The Year of Opening Boxes
So maybe it’s the egg nog or just the promise of the New Year, but I seem to find inspiration in so many things this time of year. This week, I was inspired by this unopened box. This box contains the green screen I had ordered for the strategy training series...
The Expert’s Dilemma: How to Avoid the Certainty
I'll admit it. The word "expert" has always made me cringe a bit. I'm uncomfortable with the label, even when someone graciously bestows it upon me. Doesn't being an expert make it challenging to learn new things and mess up while everyone is expecting you to stay in...
The Essential Guide to Post-Mortem (After-Action) Reviews
We know post-mortem reviews, also called after-action reviews, are essential to getting better as an individual and as a team, but they can be tricky to execute well. Learn how to get the most from your post-mortem review. Project post-mortem (PPM) reviews are...
If You’re Searching for Meaning In Your Work, Rethink How You Show Up
Finding meaning in the work we do is hard-wired into our DNA. For Gen-X'ers, some of us have this epiphany in the form of a mid-life crisis. Millennials are born with a mid-life crisis, so they've got the advantage of meaning and purpose focus right out of the gate,...
Crushing Your Most Important Goals? If Not, Download This.
Idea in Brief It's so easy for our super important goals to get hijacked by the urgent "now" demands of our day. Mid-year is the perfect time to revisit, re-evaluate, and recommit to those crucial goals. Here is my four-step process to help make it easier. When you...
The Measurements that Drive Results: Leveraging Lead Measures
Idea in Brief We spend a lot of energy on metrics to drive performance, but we focus that effort on lag measurements instead of lead measurements. Lead measures allow you to shift the focus from the rear view perspective of "how did I do" to the current and actionable...