We all know the routine. A leadership team comes together to formulate strategy, then armed with the best of intentions, assign business unit and functional teams to execute the initiatives they’ve chosen. Mission accomplished! Not so fast, often a gap between understanding and performance is experienced by those charged with implementing the initiatives flowing from the strategy. This gap invariably …
Dubai was such a great experience for LBL last May that we had to go back! This time we sent our President, Randall Rollinson, to train a new batch of strategy professionals. Equipped with our new and improved Mastering Strategy Boot Camp program, Randall and 16 professionals from Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates and Uganda spent five days learning together …
Part 2 of our blog series. Elon Musk is a unique person. The CEO of his own space exploration company, Space X, and the genius behind the premium car brand, Tesla, Musk is constantly pushing the edge of what’s possible. Often referred to half-jokingly as a real-life Iron Man, Musk seems to always be on the forefront of technology and …
Gene Kranz helped build NASA from the ground up in the late 1950s, developed the space program through Mercury, Gemini and Apollo, and he was the flight director for missions including Apollo 11 and Apollo 13. He’s the guy that ran mission control, one of the key players in achieving the goal of “landing a man on the moon and …
How many times have you heard the term “Business Transformation?” Have you ever wondered about the exact meaning of this widely used term? I have. Basically it is a change management strategy which has the aim to align people, process and technology initiatives of a company more closely with its business strategy and vision. Assuming we can generally agree with this definition, I’m …
A few years ago our team completed an intense assignment with a mid-sized organization located in the Midwest. Our charge was twofold. In Phase 1 we helped the organization set and communicate a new strategy for the future. As part of this process we conducted a thorough environmental assessment with more than fifty key stakeholders. We took the findings and …
I want to make a point about a dynamic that too often occurs in mission driven organizations. To strike the right working balance between seasoned board members, senior executives and new leaders requires appropriate orientation and training in strategic management roles and responsibilities. When little or no up-front guidance is provided new board members regarding appropriate behavior it can enable …
In working with clients on developing “Strategic Thinking” skills within an organization, there is a lot of attention on ensuring that every employee within the organization has “line of sight” from their respective role to the high-level mission and vision of the organization. The need for this connection is obvious . . . as most organizations struggle with the challenge …
There are countless ways to derail a strategic planning process. Sometimes a process is undone by the tyranny of the urgent. Other times the process can be intentionally sabotaged by c-level staff who fear the process encroaches on their territory. But most often, when a strategic planning process unravels, it is due to one of the following sure-fire methods, virtually …
“Your vision will become clear only when you can look into your own heart. Who looks outside, dreams; who looks inside, awakes.” (Carl Jung) Carl Jung’s work in understanding the human psyche (conscious and unconscious) fundamentally informed the development of modern psychoanalysis. His quote elegantly frames the challenge within the human condition to find balance between what we want (desire) …
There is no one answer to this question. The level and scope of the initial program should reflect the best use of management capabilities, and equally important, leadership preferences on how to initiate strategic management activities—regardless of the ultimate level and scope of the strategic management process aspired to and eventually realized. Organizations, even those performing the same functions and …
To create an effective strategic plan and management system is a major challenge for any organization. To do so without the necessary preparatory steps will, in all probability, result in wasted time, energy, misdirected efforts and can even lead to the resulting plan failing. Having a clear understanding of where your organization’s journey begins is vitally important and too often …
In this the second segment of our “Radar” post. We offer insights into facilitating the learning and strategic thinking processes in leadership teams of mid-sized organizations. Whether it is in a private sector, public sector or nonprofit organization we believe these principals apply. Let’s begin with a clear statement of our baseline assumptions. Accurate assessment of any strategic environment is …
To build strategic information radar requires executive management interact with key managers and staff on a continuous, scheduled basis to gather and evaluate strategically significant information of potential relevance to the strategic management of the organization. We begin construction by acknowledging what we consider key characteristics of “strategically significant information” to be: Information from any source, direct or indirect, primary …
