markets

Top Five Tips for Winning in 2013

Did you blink and 2012 zipped right by? Don’t worry, it happened to me too. Which means it’s time to start getting ready to win in 2013! Here are the top five things you can do to prepare your organization to win in the year ahead. 1. Get clear on winning (your destination). Specifically, get…

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Are You Ready to Win in 2013?

Did you blink and 2012 zipped right by? Don’t worry, it happened to me too. Which means it’s time to start getting ready to win in 2013! Here are the top five things you can do to prepare your organization to win in the year ahead. 1. Get clear on winning (your destination). Specifically, get…

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Have You Done Your 1st Quarter Checkup?

Spring has sprung (according to the calendar, anyway) and April is upon us. For those who operate according to the calendar year, that means its time for an end-of-quarter checkup in regards to the strategic plan. More specifically, it means we should begin asking questions like: Are we making progress towards the goal? Is it…

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Time to Test Your Strategy?

If you have an interest in strategy, I highly recommend subscribing to the “McKinsey Quarterly” e-newsletter. It doesn’t cost anything to sign up, and the well-researched articles keep you up to date on the latest in strategic planning trends and thought leadership. The research tends to be conducted with, and geared toward, larger company CEOs…

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Don’t Get Blinded By Your Own Data

Remember the good old days when products, markets, and industries had fairly predictable lifecycles? Back then, carefully managing a few key metrics was usually enough to ensure the continued health of the business. As long as sales and revenues held steady or continued to grow, we could remain reasonably confident regarding the future of the…

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Do You Have a Complexity Complex?

Are you overwhelmed by how fast the world moves these days? Does it seem like everything is getting more complicated? Do you sometimes feel like you might be out of your league when it comes to leading an organization in today’s chaotic markets? Welcome to business leadership in the 21st century. Technology was supposed to…

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Our Brains Are Out to Get Us!

Andy Grove, the founder of microchip giant Intel, once said, “Business success contains the seeds of its own destruction.” Just look around and it’s hard to argue with him. General Motors. Enron. Washington Mutual. Lehman Brothers. PanAm. The landscape is littered with once-dominant companies that have lost their position of market leadership or gone completely…

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What the World Cup Is Telling Us

Have you been watching the World Cup? I am a huge soccer fan and really enjoy the World Cup because it’s such a fascinating international spectacle. Plus, it never fails to serve up some interesting lessons that have real application in the business world. For example: Life isn’t always fair. The U.S. team was victimized…

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Time For a Project Premortem?

In most organizations, it’s common practice to conduct “postmortem” or lessons learned review sessions upon completion of major projects. If the project achieved its goal, management questions typically focus on what went right. “What did we do well? How can we sustain this success? What could we improve to make the outcome even better?” If…

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Are You Overdue for An Assumption Inventory?

It’s been said that in today’s chaotic markets, the only sustainable competitive advantage may be the ability to learn faster than your competitors. I disagree. The ability for leaders and managers to learn quickly is certainly a critical advantage. Especially in industries where new technologies and/or rapidly changing customer expectations can disrupt the status quo…

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