Strategy formulation

Baldwin Farms, a California-based organic lettuce grower, has opened a distribution center in Pennsylvania to meet the rising demand for its product on...

Bonuses and other forms of incentive compensation are an effective motivator of executives to achieve ever higher earnings per share. The drive to produce short-term results, however, often influences management to forgo investment in capital equipment and R&D that would benefit the corporation several years hence even more than improved earnings next year would. The […]

Awareness of these forces can help a company stake out a position in its industry that is less vulnerable to attack.

Be wise, not SMART.

They use two modes of thinking.

Too many executives have "shiny object syndrome."

A process called choice mapping helps you apply constraints that can uncover novel solutions to problems.

Baldwin Farms, a California-based organic lettuce grower, has opened a distribution center in Pennsylvania to meet the rising demand for its product on...

Managers can break through the barriers that keep their performance expectations too low.

They offer cheap, real-time learning.

Despite the enormous time and energy that goes into strategy development, many companies have little to show for their efforts. Indeed, research by the...

It's been only four years since First Rangeway Consulting went public, but to CEO Kenneth Charles, it seems like a lifetime. In the grand old days of...

In the fall of 2012 the author decided he needed to do some soul searching. The start-up he'd founded six years earlier had grown into a global company...

Results from an experiment that pitted a team of MBAs against MBAs plus AI.

Even the most brilliant strategy is worth nothing if it isn’t executed well, especially by your front line — the employees who interact daily with your customers. Unfortunately, these employees are regularly asked to execute strategies that others developed and that they may not understand, never mind feel committed or connected to. In fact, according […]

Ten steps to craft actionable insights amid soul-crushing uncertainty.

For many managers, being strategic means pursuing the opportunities that fit the company's resources. This approach is not wrong, but it obscures an alternative...

The best leaders don’t let themselves get too busy to reflect.

Many executives have grown skeptical of strategic planning. Is it any wonder? Despite all the time and energy that go into it, strategic planning most...