Category Archives: Strategy

Future Proof: 4 Ways To Explore What’s Possible

The Big Bang podcastTo imagine a future is easy, to imagine one that matters is another story.

The world is changing fast. I see it everyday in the articles and stories that get shared on my self-curated Twitter feed, as well as the conversations I have with people trying to change the world. For example, articles on how a future without cows is near, another on how our future food intake will include bugs, and another on how a self-driving car was pulled over.

These are just articles related to the future of food and transportation, dig deeper and you’ll get a picture into how various industries are changing and how others are being created in front of us.

Why is this important?

What every organization can learn from the CIA’s Red Cell to avoid stagnation

red team how to succeed by thinking like the enemyHow can your organization avoid stagnation and future proof itself?

In his book, Red Team: How to Succeed by Thinking Like the Enemy, Micah Zenko tells the story of the CIA’s Red Cell group, devoted to “alternative analysis,” which includes techniques like “what ifs,” Team A/Team B exercises, and premortem analysis, all of which are used to identify holes in a plan, model an adversary to understand their weaknesses, or consider all of the conceivable ways a plan can fail beforehand.

In The Future You Are Either a Digital Business or a Dead Business

in the future you are either a digital business or dead businessToday, every business is digital and it’s changing how business is done. But many businesses have yet to wake up and understand this reality. Look at the chart below, I’m sure your business is lacking the digital skills necessary to compete in the information age:

To create a successful business, you sometimes have to break rules. But which ones?

Which rules should we break, but won’t bring our business down if we do? This is a question that not too many businesses ask themselves but should. The simplest answer is to kill some stupid rules, the ones that no one has questioned because “that’s just the way we do things here”; break those and you’ll spark some innovative ideas.

6 of the most common strategy traps

strategy trapsStrategy without change is pointless, and doing what everyone else is doing is not a strategy; it’s a key principle most business people don’t get.

Take the most common advice you hear out there: don’t limit yourself to niche market; you won’t make any money.

There’s no such thing as a perfect strategy

Lëtzebuergesch: De Garri Kasparow géint de Com...

Lëtzebuergesch: De Garri Kasparow géint de Computerprogramm Deep Junior am Januar 2003. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Doing what everyone else is doing is the wrong strategy, and thinking that what made you succeed in the first place will result in success again is a flawed thinking. This is strategy 101, but many don’t heed this principle.

This is a lesson famed Chess Grandmaster Gary Kasparov knows all to well. From an HBR interview on what business leaders can learn from him: