Strategic Clarity

Bain & Company - Sep 16, 2021

The traceability transformation: How transparent value chains can help companies achieve their sustainability goals

A new report from Bain & Company and the World Economic Forum highlights the digital traceability journey and the challenges companies face along the way

Read Article By Hernan Saenz and Joshua Hinkel

McKinsey & Company - Sep 24, 2021

A playbook for newly minted private equity portfolio-company CEOs

Unprecedented private equity deal flow means more leaders than ever are stepping into the portfolio-company CEO role. Here’s guidance from the experts on the role’s unique challenges and demands.

Read Article By Claudy Jules, Vik Krishnan, Vivek Pandit, and Jason Phillips

McKinsey & Company - Sep 13, 2021

Steady state: Prioritising stability in a volatile market

How Santos CEO Kevin Gallagher led a comprehensive reform of the Australian energy company’s operating model.

Read Article By Angie Dickinson and Tino Grabbert

BCG - Sep 8, 2021

Service Delayed Is Service Denied

Real time is the new just in time in digital transformations.

Read Article By Olaf Rehse, George Stalk, Vaishali Rastogi, Stefan Hoffmann, and Delf Schumann

HBR.org ($) - Sep 8, 2021

3 Strategies for Managing Your Profit-Drain Customers

Improve their experience — and your bottom line.

Read Article By Jonathan Byrnes and John Wass
Source Photo: dblight/Getty Images

Bain & Company - Sep 20, 2021

Tech-fueled growth poised to accelerate; Business strategy set to become tech-driven across all sectors

Bain & Company’s second annual Global Technology report explores the drivers of rapid tech growth as well as implications for consumers, businesses and geopolitics

Read Article By Anne Hoecker and David Crawford

Agile Insider - Medium ($) - Sep 13, 2021

OKRs are networks, not hierarchies

They don’t cascade, they integrate

Read Article By Chris Butler
Source Photo: Photo by Alina Grubnyak on Unsplash

BCG - Sep 9, 2021

Beyond the Black Box in Pricing

When B2B companies let technology drive their pricing governance models, they can lose sight of their strategic objectives. Smart pricing authority keeps them on course.

Read Article By Jeff Robinson and Rodrigo Garcia Escudero

Fast Company ($) - Sep 22, 2021

3 unexpected benefits to shifting your mindset about time

Embracing long-term thinking can transform your career and business.

Read Article By Dorie Clark
Source Photo: [Photo: Akram Huseyn/Unsplash; Wilhelm Gunkel/Unsplash]

HBR.org ($) - Sep 10, 2021

Some Questions Benefit from Group Discussion. Others Don’t.

Research on the concept of “collective intelligence” has shown that in many cases, groups tend to come up with more accurate estimates after discussing a question than individual experts do on their own. However, a new study found that while this holds true for quantitative questions — i.e., “How long will the project take?” — groups are actually less accurate than individuals when it comes to yes/no questions, such as, “Will the project be done before the deadline?”.

Read Article By Joshua Becker, Douglas Guilbeault, and Edward “Ned” Smith
Source Photo: KKGAS/Stocksy

George Veth

We need to reckon with the purpose of the corporation and the purpose of our corporation(s)! This post is a conversation on the topic. A highlight is the need to have a longer term mindset on many dimensions of stakeholder value.

B The Change - Medium ($) - Sep 14, 2021

Pursuing Business Purpose for a More Sustainable World

How Companies Can Lead with a Long-Term Mindset

Read Article By Network for Business Sustainability
Source Photo: (Photo source: Getty Images)

George Veth

Fun post outlining the process that Autodesk took to detect and explore possible futures for their business. I found myself really wanting to be part of the process that was outlined. They created a training program on “foresight frameworks to scan for weak signals of change” and the use of “flash fiction scenarios to explore the near and longer-term implications of these signals”. What fun – and how valuable!

Ellen Hlozan - Medium ($) - Sep 17, 2021

An Experiment in Applied Foresight: Building Inclusive Futures with a Global Community of Innovators

The following article details a research experiment developed over the last year and a half within Autodesk Research. More specifically, we’ll walk you through a project exploring how to engage a global community of innovators with foresight methods and the learnings that were teased out of this process.

Read Article By Ellen Hlozan
Source Photo: Photo by drmakete lab on Unsplash

George Veth

Laughed at the quote by the executive at his corporate strategy session, “I don’t know why we do this each year. It always turns out to be business-as-usual.” Love the subsequent challenge to get executives to move beyond traditional internal strategy sessions and get out and interview key stakeholders, because it is with these stakeholders that insight and learning can be found.

HBR.org ($) - Sep 21, 2021

Executives, Let Stakeholders Drive Your Strategy

The traditional process of making strategy is about managers finding a way to align a company’s capabilities with its opportunities and environment. That works well enough when environments are relatively stable, but not in highly unstable ones.

Read Article By Graham Kenny
Source Photo: Orbon Alija/Getty Images

Fast Company ($) - Aug 20, 2021

How to spot tomorrow’s macrotrends before they change everything

It’s easy to tell when a trend is in the process of transforming an industry. What’s trickier—and more powerful—is identifying them before their impact is unmistakable.

Read Article By Jonathan Brill
Source Photo: [Source images: Guirong Hao/iStock; OstapenkoOlena/iStock]

George Veth

Great case study of UPS from the eyes of their new CEO, Carol Tomé. I really enjoyed her vivid description of the process she took the company through after inheriting the top role amidst the pandemic. The article outlines a very thoughtful approach to reorienting around purpose and values, integrating the voice of employees, and devolving some decision-making. This may seem basic, but, at the same time, it is so healthy. Love it.

Harvard Business Review ($) - Sep 1, 2021

The CEO of UPS on Taking the Reins Amid Surging Pandemic Demand

When the author agreed to accept the top job at UPS, the global shipping service, in late winter of 2019, she expected to steer the company toward a brighter future. She had no idea that she would have to do it during a global pandemic that made her organization an essential service but kept most people at home and pushed demand for shipped goods to holiday levels year-round.

Read Article By Carol B. Tomé
Source Photo: Nathan Morgan

john bessant - Medium ($) - Aug 18, 2021

The power of problem exploration

How taking time out to explore and reframe problems might help stretch our innovation capability

Read Article By john bessant
Source Photo: Image: @paopano on Freepik

George Veth

Important article on the need for “ethical leadership” and a leader’s role in doing so. Ethical leadership is the need to engage with and “navigate a world in which accountability is defined in different ways by different audiences”. Hence, it can be terribly disorienting. The challenge of engaging such multistakeholder environments is pertinent to all corporate leaders. The article recounts two different stories of poor ethical conduct and how each corporation responded. One company used a traditional playbook to respond while the other walked into the issue with humility and a growth mindset – focused on being a different organization in the future. The different responses are informative.

strategy+business ($) - Aug 16, 2021

A new role for business leaders: Moral integrator

With stakeholders and shareholders vying for attention, CEOs need to develop a new kind of ethical leadership to build trust in society and deliver results.

Read Article By Liz Sweigart
Source Photo: Photograph by Dimitri Otis

George Veth

Love this article and the authors focus on the “soul” of the organization – as strategy! The authors state “organizations are living beings with souls — invested in improving everyone’s prospects, not just their own…CEOs must start formulating strategy with their souls and then execute it with their brains”. To sum it up, don’t miss the mention of Tadashi Yanai (CEO of Fast Retailing, which operates the Uniqlo stores) who took a day and a half of his management team’s time to talk through the 23 management principles that he espouses in his leadership.

MIT Sloan Management Review ($) - Aug 12, 2021

Strategy as a Way of Life

Businesses must root strategy in moral purpose to thrive in a complex, rapidly changing world.

Read Article By Ikujiro Nonaka and Hirotaka Takeuchi
Source Photo: Image courtesy of Michael Austin/theispot.com

AG Lafley - Medium ($) - Aug 10, 2021

A Cascade of Choices

Why are some brands able to succeed spectacularly where so many fail? When the people aren’t better or worse — not harder working, more dedicated, bolder or luckier than anyone else?

Read Article By AG Lafley

George Veth

This article focuses on radically overhauling your organization’s customer experience (CX) to achieve market success. It speaks to the need to leverage human-centered design experts to do a deep dive into all of the interaction points along the customer journey (coined the “Midas Touch”). The authors also talk to the likely need to consolidate resources from other incremental CX improvement projects to provide ample support to do so. I really like this blank page design approach to meeting customer needs, but I also understand the organizational hurdles and inertia to take on such revolutionary change efforts.

BCG - Aug 2, 2021

CEOs Need a Customer Experience Revolution—Not an Evolution

Thanks to digital technologies and digitally savvy customers, companies across industries can create a customer experience unlike anything ever seen before. CEOs, take note: this could be the biggest growth opportunity to come along in decades.

Read Article By Bharat Poddar, Yogesh Mishra, Karen Lellouche Tordjman, and Rob Bell
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Strategic Clarity

 

Strategic Clarity articulates long term priorities as well as current strategies throughout the company

All Time Favorites

McKinsey & Company - Jun 1, 2002

Harvard Business Review ($) - Jun 1, 2002