Bridging the Gap: Aligning Your Strategic & Financial Plans for Success Things are rarely predictable in the business world. Just when you think you've nailed your business plan, a curveball arrives, tossing your meticulously laid plans into the wind. We all remember 2020. The pandemic's arrival highlighted how quickly external forces can upend even the [...]
Stop Wasting Time and Money on Failing Projects Let’s face it: running a business, whether it’s a bustling city department, a thriving university, or a dynamic private enterprise, is a constant balancing act. You’re juggling priorities, managing resources, and striving to achieve ambitious goals. But amidst the chaos, a familiar feeling creeps in: the sinking [...]
Beyond the Numbers: Crafting KPIs That Actually Drive Growth We all know the importance of quantitative measurement in business. Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) are supposed to be the guiding lights, the north stars that keep us on track toward our goals. But too often, KPIs are chosen haphazardly, based on what's trendy or what competitors [...]
Strategic Performance Made Visible with StrategyBlocks 6 We've all been there: a strategic plan gets announced with fanfare, but then gets buried under a mountain of emails and outdated information. Progress updates are hard to find, and decision-making feels stuck in the past. The world moves too fast for static plans and manual reporting. That's [...]
Why Higher Ed Needs a Strategic Shift As far back as 1636, with the founding of Harvard College in Massachusetts, the United States has been a leader in higher education. As Adrian Wooldridge points out in his Bloomberg column, in many respects the US is still considered the global pacemaker for higher ed. After all, [...]
Unlocking Strategic Success: The 6 Dimensions of Strategy Model Are you struggling to create a strategic plan that truly drives results? Many organizations fall short, often focusing solely on the "what" of strategy, neglecting the crucial "how." In this video, Craig, co-founder of StrategyBlocks, talks us through the 6 Dimensions of Strategy Model, a framework [...]
Building a Winning Team: A Strategic Approach to Hiring Building the right team is critical to business success, but that doesn’t mean the hiring process is easy. It can be an incredible drain on resources. According to the Society for Human Resource Management, the average cost to hire an employee is well over $4000, yet [...]
Power Position: The Role of the COO in Shaping Company Strategy Like many C-suite positions, the Chief Operating Officer role is evolving. Typically the second-ranking executive in the company, the position was once focused purely on the tactical needs of operations. Today, however, COOs are tasked with everything from improving customer-centricity to managing digital transformation, [...]
Three Tactics to Ensure Your Strategy and Culture Are Aligned Company culture was first identified back in the 1950s by Dr. Elliot Jaques, in his book entitled The Changing Culture of a Factory. In it, Dr. Jacques shares results from a longitudinal study he conducted at a ball-bearing plant in England and the impact various [...]
Why KPIs are Critical for Business Strategy Quantitative measurement is critical to a strong business strategy. Surprisingly, however, it is often overlooked. While there are any number of reasons why, many companies make the mistake of believing Key Performance Indicators (business metrics) are obvious and therefore don’t need to be clearly articulated as part of [...]
