The Three D's of Strategic Planning As Benjamin Franklin famously said, ‘if you fail to plan, you are planning to fail.’ An effective business strategy should clearly identify where your business is headed and create cohesion within an organization to achieve the target goals. It should not only define the destination but also set [...]
The Books That Influenced Me on Strategy There might not be a “one-size-fits-all” approach to building a successful company strategy. But seeking advice and guidance from experts within the field can without a doubt be beneficial and help you think in new ways. There is a lot of great literature on strategy and success, [...]
The Strategy of Strategic Corporate Giving Is your business giving? Business strategy is more than ensuring your objectives of ROI and employee engagement are met. While business is all about profit, it may seem that giving a portion of that profit away goes against sound advice. However, corporate giving programs, also known as Corporate [...]
Measuring Success through Execution How do we measure success? For some, success is that one perfect moment where everything comes together. For others, success is a measurement of carefully crafted ideas that make a difference in the world. More technical or analytical people might even measure success by data points and analytics that clearly [...]
The Core of Strategy When we think of the core of an item we think of something that acts as a support upon which everything else can build and evolve. An apple’s core, for example, holds an apple together and provides seeds for future growth. The core of the earth supports the rocks above [...]
How to Harmonize Your Strategy Strategic planning is essential when it comes to achieving success and efficiency within an organization. However, it is often difficult to ensure that implemented plans reach all areas within the company, resulting in poor understanding and no real idea of how to visualize the plan from those actually in [...]
If Sun Tzu Had Been CEO If Sun Tzu had been a CEO, would he have applied the same tactics to his business that he did his armies? Many people have thought so – taking the timeless words of wisdom regarding warfare and applying them to modern business philosophy. As Rick Wartzman, executive director [...]
How to Balance Strategy’s Ying with Culture’s Yang We’ve talked about planning and the importance of setting strategy. We’ve talked about how collaborative diplomats make better strategic leaders today than authoritarian autocrats. But what we haven’t explored in depth yet is a third crucial block when building successful companies: culture. Strategy is futile if [...]
Rio 2016: Gold Medal Lessons for Business Leaders As the Rio Summer Olympics have now come to a close and will disappear until Tokyo 2020, it is a good time to reflect on what businesses of all shapes and sizes across the globe can learn from the plethora of athletic achievements. When you watch [...]
Battlefield Beliefs Lead to Dead-End Strategies: Why Your Strategy Will Fail Without a Collaborative Approach The word “strategy” is synonymous with the idea of war. With its origins in Greek military terminology, the term conjures up the image of a general devising a battle plan. As StrategyBlocks highlighted in our recent Minutehack article, those who think of corporate strategy or [...]
