South African Rugby is in shock! Beaten by Japan? The newspapers and armchair selectors kick-in. The team is too old, too white and too arrogant. And of course there are particular players who should not have been on the field. It’s a maul out there. A maul. I am comfortable to observe without inserting my [...]
This is Kurt Lewin. He is recognised by many as the father of social psychology. His family moved from a town in modern Poland to Berlin. He studied in Freiberg and was wounded fighting in the German Army in WWI. In 1933 he left Germany and settled in the USA. He developed psychological models still [...]
You have your Strategy, your business model in strategy map format and your plan or Balanced Scorecard. You have your execution engine. You have even oiled the gearbox translating the daily work of individuals into relevant effort. Now all you need is fuel for your strategy engine. How do you get each person to do [...]
"At StrategyWorks we craft the strategic conversation, in all of its expected and unexpected shapes and colours." That’s my elevator pitch. It's my response to the question: “So what do you do?” My mini cliff-hanger. One of the ‘unexpected shapes’ turns out to be how the client answers this question. The topic of value proposition [...]
We have good days and bad days at The Pipe. Even on good days the waves break further out or closer in, depending on the size of the set. On the good days the break can get crowded. You need a strategy and a decision process to get your waves. Strategy My strategy is [...]
Strategy execution happens in small chunks. Plan your day to hedge against procrastination. Plan your week to you carve out a space of calm in the urgent-important. Plan your month to focus on strategic goals. Do you look like the guys in the photo as you execute strategy? You have returned from your off-site. You have [...]
Appreciative Inquiry (AI) Is your culture on target? Getting teams to take on new behaviours is sometimes tough. Do you find people sticking to old, ineffective behaviours even you have presented a better way? Do key people in your organisation sometimes seem to miss the point? Is there an undercurrent of negativity in your team? [...]
Operations, efficiency and costs are only part of the Internal Process Perspective Once I built a motorbike, a BMW R60. I mixed with motor-mechanics. They had a joke about a ‘Freestate’ torque-wrench (you can apply your favourite ethnic, cultural or tribal slur). There, they said, you get the biggest spanner onto a nut, turn it [...]
I started rock climbing on Table Mountain as a student. There is something compelling about moving from hold to hold, high up on a rock face. It is about confidence, poise and pushing the limits. To be sure there were tense times. I used to climb with someone who was prone to go off route. Now [...]
Apparently when Apple won the patent case against Samsung and demanded payment of $1 Billion, Samsung paid up in full in 30 trucks full of 5c coins. Resource Based Strategy is based in heterogeneity Samsung and Apple offer similar products in the mobile and tablet market, based on completely different competencies. Apple has built a [...]
