What is Strategic Lag?
Strategic Lag is a name given to a phenomena which I have witnessed regularly in my strategic consulting. Particularly relevant amongst executive decision makers, this lag transcends organizations, industries and countries and is applicable to just about any strategic process in varying degrees. As its name implies Strategic Lag suggests that the actions you take, or don’t take, today will only be manifest some time into the future and give you the capacity you desire down the road. i.e.: The strategic planning of today will only begin to see the relevant results in due course.
How the ‘talented’ become ‘untalented’ -7 Questions About Your Own Talent
We’ve all seen it before…the whizz kid arrives as the new talent, pouring his fresh brand of creativity, ideas and innovation into a project, assignment or campaign. The results speak for themselves and he is handsomely rewarded at the completion of it. Then comes project number two and the talent rests on his laurels, still contributing yet without the same edge. By project number three he/she is just another member of the team and by project 4 they are a liability in terms of their value add. So what goes wrong?
Why Call Centers Suck
Call centers are a latent curse of modern times. In principle, the idea of a call center seems to fit perfectly into the scalable systems of big business, however in reality, call centers fall very short of the purpose or efficiency they were intended for.
Do You Know of the Unknown Knowns?
“There are known knowns; there are things we know we know. We also know there are known unknowns; that is to say we know there are some things we do not know. But there are also unknown unknowns – there are things we do not know we don’t know.” – Former United States Secretary of Defense, Donald Rumsfeld.
George Bush’s infamous minister of defense, Donald Rumsfeld, came up with well known statement over a decade ago. Used as a tool to cite the need to act against Iraq based upon the very lack of evidence as evidence, this matrix has been used across the world as a means for strategic thinking and planning.
The 10 Key Skills for the Future of Work
This is a superb analysis of the future world of work and what skills will be needed in the future by Jessica Stillman. How many of these skills do you think you have; how many do you think warrant actually being included and do you think she has left any other skills out? Let me know your thoughts in the comments section below.
What are the jobs of the future? The demographics of an aging population suggests health care will be big, say some. Data science is scheduled to explode, suggest others, or maybe anything computer-related is a solid bet. But let’s be honest, predicting exact job titles set to soar or the fates of specific sectors is nearly impossible.
Purpose: The Search for Strategic Alignment
For those organizations that I have consulted to, you will know that I have been very strong on pushing organizations to understand why they exist. There is a constant need for companies to really focus on their purpose and values and to try and create the ethos of the company. The model which we draw strongly on at PLI is from an international consultant Nikos Mourkogiannis. Attached is an article by him which really drives home the above point.
The Problem With Cellphones
I have typically started off many of my strategic facilitations with the following video:
Carlsons Law of Innovation
On recently reading Thomas Friedmans latest book “That Used to be Us” I came across an interesting take on innovation – Carlsons Law of Innovation. Now every company on this planet seems to want to innovate – so this was of interest.
Carlsons Law of Innovation states “Innovation that happens from the top down tends to be orderly but dumb. Innovation that happens from the bottom up tends to be chaotic but smart.”
Curtis Carlson is the CEO of SRI International, a company which serves as an innovation factory for organisations ranging from governements to multinational companies. His is an innovation hot house. What Carlson’s laws implies is that if you try and impose innovation on a company as the CEO or as one of the senior managers, you will be indeed receive innovation in return. However, the innovation that happens often tends to be what the CEO would like to hear and see as opposed to what the organisation actually needs.
China and the Climate Change Paradox
Last week, much of Beijing was forced to slow down and in the case of its airports, actually shut down owing to high levels of smog. Here in Durban, South Africa, the Cop 17 talks rolled out to try and reach a binding agreement about climate change and a globally shared responsibility towards tackling the problem. The irony was not lost on me as I read reports of each of the big players: US, China and India, stalling the talks for their own economic self interest and reasons. Like many people I initially thought to myself that the smog will truly have to reach rock bottom before a nation like China takes the hint to progress environmental sustainability in spite of its economic progress. On further study, however, I believe that China is trying to do just that.
Great Disruption or Big Shift? – You Decide
I have long been a fan of Thomas Friedman – his books ‘The World is Flat’ (2005) and ‘Hot Flat and Crowded’ (2008) both provided superb insight into what was actually happening to drive change in the world. And his latest book ‘That Used to be Us: What went wrong with America’ (2011) is similarly riveting reading. I will write further on this in due course. However it was an article he wrote in the International herald Tribune this week that really caught my eye – great reading on the world today. Enjoy…
So What’s Changed?
Two weeks ago I was in the UK facilitating a strategic review session. The client is an organisation in the financial services market and I began by asking the the simple question: ‘So what has changed over the last 6 months?’ To my shock, the answer from around the room was “Not much…’
On throwing around some thoughts into what I thought was change with regards to the global financial markets, the discussion delved deeper and the response slowly shifted to ‘Well…I guess things are changing…’
Don’t always trust the Experts…
We make important decisions every day – and we often rely on experts to help us decide. But, says economist Noreena Hertz, relying too much on experts can be limiting and even dangerous. She calls for us to start democratizing expertise – to listen not only to “surgeons and CEOs, but also to shop staff.”
How Climate Change will Affect the Insurance Industry
The news is frequently racked with catastrophic stories about one natural disaster after the next. In recent months we have seen a Tsunami flood Japan, the ‘worst hurricane in the world’ sweep across America and several earthquakes in Argentina as well as China. The natural world has devastated man made constructions, cities and countries in swift succession, and will only continue to do so as climate change evolves. But the question that many people are asking is who will foot the bill?
3 Undeniable Strategic Realities
The three undeniable strategic realities for successful strategic development and approach.
Beware of the Online ‘Filter Bubbles’
In this TED Talk, Eli Pariser argues that citizens of the web need to be careful about getting trapped in a ‘filter bubble’. Explaining how the tailoring of online services to personal tastes will reduce exposure to information that challenges and broadens our worldview, Pariser warns how this could potentially be bad for us as well as democracy.
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