I love how Rita McGrath shares her frame on blind spots, seeing around corners. It's a great way to think of these types of opportunities. In business there is always that point when something new is starting to take hold. It could be a new technology, a new service or a dramatic shift in consumer or market expectations. We can get stuck in the trap of what we are doing and how we have been doing it. This limits our ability to properly assess the situation. It is not always a lack of ideas that leaves us caught off guard, rather inadequately addressing the problem. This is one of the reasons I love working with younger teams.  People that are new to the workforce, new to a new company or industry see things as they are. They don't have years of experience that is guiding their thinking or altering their perceptions; they are free from the workplace biases we create and support by having to execute day in and day out. Because of this gap in knowledge or understanding of the c...

  There is such a shift happening with new world thinking. How we approach problems and where we need to apply focus and effort. Provoke is a great read that helps push your strategic thinking. What you will see from this book is the major differentiator that separates start-ups from established brands, and why some brands are able to adapt while others seem to fall off the cliff. Provoke is all about how you as a leader, need to embrace taking action versus the slow burn that is so prevalent in our organizations as leadership is focused on year over year results and protecting the bonus. Here are some key takeaways for me that will help you and your team have more success. Accepting a Trend and Properly Understanding How Mature it is Evaluate the trend that you are seeing and label as "if" or "when". Leaders often miss an opportunity because they either miss it, deny it, over analyze it or respond poorly A correctly labelled "if" vs "when" trend...

    I'm writing today inspired by a post I saw by Chris Walker - on LinkedIn . It resonated with me personally and professionally. There is a dichotomy between having a vision and seeing what others don't while also needing their approval and trying fit in. We are often asked to solve problems and come up with new and innovating solutions to what we see in front of us. Rarely are you asked to implement a dated and by the book strategy, everyone wants to be on the cutting edge. Oddly enough, the more your ideas or approach differ from the status quo, from what the people within the organization has succeeded on, the harder it gets to take those new roads. It feels like most of time, people want you to take the same path and miraculously see something that no one else before you saw, hang a right and boom ... you are at your perfect oasis. Ridiculous.   Here's a fun list for you: Apple Tesla AirBnB FedEx KFC Evernote Blogger Amazon   Wondering what the list is about? A...

Do you think that complicated and complex mean the same thing? It's probably a bit of an unfair question, considering the dictionary basically tells you they are! Complicated: Composed of elaborately interconnected parts; complex Complex: Characterized by a very complicated or involved arrangement of parts, units, etc. This idea however, that these two things mean the same, is one of the biggest challenges we face in the business world today. Why? Because it allows business leaders to use the wrong type of approach to 'solve' the type of problem identified (assuming of course that they have correctly identified the problem). Rick Nason, an associate professor of finance at Dalhousie University’s Rowe School of Business, explains the differences between these two types of problems clearly. Complicated problems may be hard to solve (or may even seem unsolvable at a particular point in time) however they are addressable with a systemic or process ...

Where are we playing? How do we win? So many businesses these days don't see to really be able to answer these questions. Now, while they seem straight forward and simple, they are actually extremely powerful questions and answering them properly requires quite a bit of work; but for the companies that can answer them properly, they are successful in what they do. Businesses of all sizes struggle with really understanding where to play. A company that tries to be everything to everyone while being everywhere is a great example of a company that doesn't really know where to play (and how to win). The underlying premise of those two questions is to really understand where or what your competitive advantage is. For anyone who wants to read more, please see: Competitive Advantage . Simply put, a competitive advantage is an advantage over competitors gained by offering consumers greater value, either by means of lower prices (cost) or by providing greater benefit...

You often hear people talk about strategy and being strategic in interchangeable ways. The reality is, these are not the same; added to this, people often mistake strategy or strategic thinking for goals. Many leaders create a lot of confusion for their teams by not being able to apply these concepts properly. Here's how I look at it and how best I have found to communicate it. Goals: The end state, where would we like to be, what do we want to achieve Strategic: What direction should we be moving to in to create or further leverage an advantage Strategy: Specific actions and initiatives that will make real or enhance your advantage As you can see, strategy is actually about what your team is going to do.  Being able to focus your team this way is essential to avoid the trap of having everyone working extremely hard yet never fully accomplishing the goal. All too often, leaders explain the goals and the strategic thinking of the initiative and assume that their teams w...