Posts

Is Strategic Planning Still Relevant?

/in /by

In March 2010, Fast Company ran a piece entitled “Strategic Planning is Dead, Long Live Strategy Execution,” a few weeks earlier the Wall Street Journal declared that “Strategic Plans Lose Favor.” So is strategic planning another victim of the economic tsunami that has washed over the world?

It is easy to jump on the bandwagon and declare that in today’s volatile and uncertain world strategic planning is irrelevant. Amidst all the talk of flexibility, agility, speed and responsiveness, strategic planning seems oddly out of place. After all how useful can a long-term view of future be when our predictive ability is so poor?

However, before we discard strategy lets back up, maybe the problem is not strategic planning itself but the way in which we apply the technique. As Michael Porter author of numerous books that are essentials in the library of any strategic planner commented: “Strategy is a word that gets used in so many ways with so many meanings that it can end up being meaningless.”

Hi there! This article is available for free. Login or register as a StrategyDriven Personal Business Advisor Self-Guided Client by:

Subscribing to the Self Guided Program - It's Free!


 

About the Author

David Axson, author of The Management Mythbuster, is President of the Sonax Group, a business advisory firm. He is a former head of corporate planning at Bank of America and was a co-founder of The Hackett Group. He is a sought-after speaker and writer on business strategy and management and is widely regarded as a thought leader in the industry. To read David’s complete biography, click here.

StrategyDriven Podcast Special Edition 42b – An Interview with Geoff Loftus, author of Lead Like Ike, part 2 of 2

/in , /by

StrategyDriven Podcasts focus on the tools and techniques executives and managers can use to improve their organization’s alignment and accountability to ultimately achieve superior results. These podcasts elaborate on the best practice and warning flag articles on the StrategyDriven website.

Special Edition 42b – An Interview with Geoff Loftus, author of Lead Like Ike, part 2 of 2 explores the leadership lessons of General Dwight D. Eisenhower, the American CEO of D-Day, and how by applying these lessons, business professionals can achieve far greater success in today’s challenging and rapidly evolving business world. During our discussion, Geoff Loftus, author of Lead Like Ike: Ten Business Strategies from the CEO of D-Day shares with us his insights and illustrative examples regarding:

  • Eisenhower’s criteria for keeping or terminating problematic subordinates and why these provided beneficial
  • the most important business strategy taught by the CEO of D-Day
  • why an Eisenhower-like leader could rise and thrive in today’s fast-paced business world

Additional Information

In addition to the invaluable insights Geoff shares in Lead Like Ike and this special edition podcast are the resources accessible from his website, www.GeoffLoftus.com.   Geoff’s book, Lead Like Ike, can be purchased by clicking here.

Final Request…

The strength of our community grows with the additional insights brought by our expanding member base. Please consider rating us on iTunes by clicking here. Rating the StrategyDriven Podcast and providing your comments online improves our ranking and helps us attract new listeners which, in turn, helps us grow our community.

Thank you again for listening to the StrategyDriven Podcast!

About the Author

Geoff Loftus is author of Lead Like Ike. Previously, Geoff served as Managing Editor of Across the Board, a monthly business magazine of thought and opinion at The Conference Board. He has addressed large audiences from Fortune 500 companies on numerous business topics, has been a regular contributor to Forbes.com, and has been interviewed by Fortune, The New York Times, and The Wall Street Journal. To read Geoff’s complete biography, click here.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 23:53 — 32.8MB)

Subscribe: RSS

StrategyDriven is Now Available on the Amazon Kindle

/in /by

StrategyDriven is pleased to announce our great daily articles are now available for easy download to the Amazon Kindle! Now you can enjoy StrategyDriven on-the-go – at the airport, in the coffee shop, or in the comfort of your own home – all with a simple daily download from Amazon.com. Click here to subscribe to StrategyDriven (Kindle Edition) or on the Amazon icon in the Stay Connected to StrategyDriven portion of our website’s right sidebar.

About Kindle Blog Subscriptions

  • Kindle Blogs are auto-delivered wirelessly to your Kindle and updated throughout the day so you can stay current.
  • It’s risk free – all Kindle Blog subscriptions start with a 14-day free trial. You can cancel at any time during the free trial period. If you enjoy your subscription, do nothing and it will automatically continue at the regular monthly price.
  • Don’t have a Kindle? Get yours here.

Leadership Inspirations – The Will to Win

/in /by

“The spirit, the will to win, and the will to excel are the things that endure. These qualities are so much more important than the events that occur.”

Vince Lombardi (1913 – 1970)
Head Coach of the Green Bay Packers (1959 – 1967); winning five league championships. The National Football League’s Super Bowl trophy is named in his honor

What Would a Business Robot Do?

/in /by

There is an old joke about a man who goes to his neighbor’s house to borrow a lawnmower. On the way, he thinks about all the reasons his neighbor might say no to his request, and gets angrier and angrier as he listens to the imaginary argument in his head. When he finally gets to his neighbor’s house, he rings the doorbell, waits for the neighbor to answer, and shouts, “Keep your d@#n lawnmower you ungrateful @#$%^&*!”

Most of us become aware, at some point in our lives, of the price we pay for cutting ourselves off from our feelings. Like a river flowing against a dam, the more we resist feeling what we feel, the stronger those feelings can get. But what many people also fail to notice is how these repressed feelings and emotions get in the way of making sound business decisions.

Emma was struggling to keep her home-based business alive after about a year of very hard work and very limited profits. When she hired me to help her turn things around (or help her make peace with letting the business go), the first thing I did was introduce her to a thinking tool I use with many of my clients:

Hi there! This article is available for free. Login or register as a StrategyDriven Personal Business Advisor Self-Guided Client by:

Subscribing to the Self Guided Program - It's Free!


 

About the Author

Michael Neill is an internationally renowned transformative coach and the author of the new book, Supercoach: 10 Secrets to Transform Anyone’s Life. For the past 20 years, he has been a coach, adviser, mentor, and creative spark plug to celebrities, CEOs, royalty and people who want to get more out of their lives. He hosts a weekly talk show on HayHouseRadio.com, and his daily and weekly coaching columns can be read on his website www.geniuscatalyst.com.