Tag Archives: strategy

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Wells Fargo: Culture Eats Strategy (again) and (this time) the CEO

Over the decades organizational culture has devoured hundreds, if not thousands of strategies. One of the most recent examples is the case of Wells Fargo, where culture not only ate a long-standing, apparently successful strategy but last week also consumed … Continue reading →

Posted in Change, General, Leadership, Strategy | Tagged acquisitions, banking, Carrie Tolstedt, Cartesian mindset, cross-selling, culture, ethical code, ethics, Goldman Sachs, Jack Welch, John Stumpf, mega-bank, mergers, muppets, Norwest Corporation, outcomes, performance, process, scale, strategy, Timothy Sloan, Wachovia, wells fargo | Comments Off on Wells Fargo: Culture Eats Strategy (again) and (this time) the CEO

Strategy as the Creation of Power: The Lion versus the Fox

This week my blog consists of the review I wrote for Strategy+Business of Lawrence Freedman’s Strategy – a History: Lawrence Freedman defines strategy as the central political art. “It is about getting more out of a situation than the starting … Continue reading →

Posted in General, Strategy | Tagged Albion Small, annihilation, attrition, Clausewitz, cunning, David, fox, Goliath, Greeks, improvisation, Kahneman, Lawrence Freedman, lion, Machiavelli, narrative, Odysseus, performance, Romans, script, strategy, strength, Trojan Horse | Comments Off on Strategy as the Creation of Power: The Lion versus the Fox

The Map and The Territory: Complexity as Challenge and Opportunity

My blog this week is an extended version of a comment I made a couple of days ago on Adrian Wooldridge’s (the Schumpeter columnist) report on the 5th Drucker Forum in The Economist. It also picks up from last week’s … Continue reading →

Posted in Change, General, Leadership, Strategy | Tagged Christensen, complex systems, complexity, Drucker Forum, formulation, fractal, implementation, job-to-be-done, learning, Mandelbrot, map, Martin Wooldridge, projects, Roger Martin, scale, Schumpeter, strategy, territory, tolerance, Vienna | Comments Off on The Map and The Territory: Complexity as Challenge and Opportunity

Ecology versus Engineering: Why Reverse-Engineered Strategy Is No Better Than A Paint-by-Numbers Kit

Recently there has been a lively discussion on LinkedIn about the similarities and differences between Kim and Mauborgne’s Blue Ocean strategy and Michael Porter’s strategic frameworks. What became clear in the debate is that the shared methodology behind both approaches … Continue reading →

Posted in Change, General, Leadership, Strategy, Uncategorized | Tagged as if arguments, baseball, Blue Ocean, Cirque du Soleil, ecological perspective, implementation, Kim and Mauborgne, Milton Friedman, Paul Krugman, Porter, rationalist delusion, reverse-engineered strategy, strategy | 2 Comments

Is Storytelling a Strategy or a Competency?

Several weeks ago a blog appeared on the Harvard Business Review site entitled “Good Companies are Storytellers. Great Companies Are Storydoers.” In it its author, Ty Montague, outlined the characteristics of a storydoing company: 1. They have a story 2. … Continue reading →

Posted in Change, General, Leadership, Strategy | Tagged competency, Cynthia Kurtz, deliberate practice, ecology, engineering, feedback, narrative, principles, story, story being, story doing, storytelling, strategy, Ty Montague | Comments Off on Is Storytelling a Strategy or a Competency?

Why Strategy Has Lost Its Mojo

This post appeared last Friday on the Strategic Management Bureau site as a “Strategic Snack“. You can follow the discussion on LinkedIn here The Urban Dictionary gives three definitions for mojo: Self-confidence, self assuredness (especially in sexual advances or battle) … Continue reading →

Posted in Change, Leadership, Strategy | Tagged change, Cynthia Montgomery, ecological perspective, Kenneth Andrews, leadership, logical empiricist, Michael Porter, narrative, rational choice, Richard Pascale, strategy | 2 Comments

Our Curious Addiction to Corporate Grand Strategy

This week my blog is devoted to republishing (with his permission) Richard T. Pascale’s column from the January 25, 1982 edition of Fortune magazine. It’s an oldie but goodie not available elsewhere online. Much has changed since he wrote the … Continue reading →

Posted in Change, Leadership, Strategy | Tagged Abernathy, Bruce Henderson, change, experience curve, Fortune, Harley-Davidson, Hayes, Honda, Japan, Mazda, McKinsey, piano, portfolio theory, Richard Pascale, strategy, Talon, Timex, Toyopet, Yamaha, YKK | 1 Comment

The Natural Case for Employee Engagement

Yesterday the Strategic Management Bureau asked, “Is the unending search for ‘the business case’ for employee engagement a futile exercise?” and cited an article on the topic. In my response to the question I suggested that the attempt to create … Continue reading →

Posted in Change, General, Leadership, Strategy | Tagged change, community, complex systems, creativity, crisis, destruction, ecocycle, ecological perspective, ecosystem, empowerment, engagement, KPI, KSF, leadership, lean, management ethics, Max Weber, means and ends, passion, power, purpose, reason, renewal, scorecard, shareholder value model, social traps, strategy, sustainability, sweet zone, Toyota Production System, trust, value stream, wertrationale, zweckrationale | 1 Comment

Management and the Limits of Logic Part II

When I wrote last week’s blog, I was unaware that Monitor Group, the consulting company founded in 1983 by strategy guru Michael Porter and some Harvard Business School colleagues, had filed for bankruptcy in mid-November and that its assets were … Continue reading →

Posted in Change, General | Tagged balance, both...and, change, competition, creativity, ecological perspective, either/or, elephant, entrepreneur, Five-Forces, gardening, innovation, Jonathan Haidt, logic, markets, Max Weber, Michael Porter, Monitor Group, Protestant Ethic, rationalism, rider, shareholder value, Steve Denning, strategy, The Righteous Mind | 1 Comment

Romney and Obama: Do Mormons Make Better Managers than Leaders?

We are into the last six weeks of the presidential election and the contrasts between Mitt Romney and Barack Obama throw light on the sometimes-controversial distinction between managers and leaders. In his 1977 article in the Harvard Business Review “Managers … Continue reading →

Posted in Change, General, Leadership, Strategy, Uncategorized | Tagged Barack Obama, Clayton Christensen, context, David Brooks, Democratic National Convention, George W. Bush, leaders, manager, means and ends, Mitt Romney, Mormon, narrative, pull, push, strategy, Varieties of Religious Experience, William James, Zaleznik | 1 Comment ← Older posts