What NFPs can learn from F1
I spent a weekend painting a room, which is a great excuse for a four hour podcast (on someone’s recommendation; whose?). Acquired’s Formula 1 episode is a wild ride.
Diagnosing initiative failure via dada and a break-up text to the Board
In the last two months, I have spoken to three different directors about strategy execution failing.
Reframe at every boundary
Data crosses boundaries easily. The story that makes it meaningful doesn’t.
Going nowhere - blame the hamster or the wheel?
When the new CEO is having Board conversations that all agree are “… full of sound and fury, signifying nothing…”
‘I don’t want to argue about whose dad has the toughest strategy’
With no top-level Strategy to rule the road, every leader's so-called strategies faced different directions, and got in each others' way.
Does your risk management connect to anything?
The risk register feels like control. But it's useless unless it's woven through the organisation.
When reality at the bottom looks like failure from the top
The new strategy was launched six months ago with a CEO roadshow and big A2 posters in the break room.
The map most boards are missing (or, the conversations no-one is having)
The NFP map is a tool to help Boards and Management understand the full system they’re operating inside - purpose, hierarchy, rhythm and ownership
Key Performance Insecurity
KPI is an overextended and anxiety-inducing term, sowing more confusion than clarity
The only performance management system that I've seen to work
At the UK's Science Museum Group in 2010, I encountered the best annual performance setting/review system I've ever seen. They strip-mined Jack Welch's system for the useful bits.
Interim vs Consultant
Reflections on being six weeks into an interim CEO role. Crucial differences between consulting from the outside and leading from the inside
Strategy as a psychedelic concert
At the weekend I experienced the sheer joy of a Flaming Lips performance. With a few days of distance from the exuberance, and a newsletter deadline approaching, I’ve been drawing strategy lessons.
Should strategy be furtive?
What does a science fiction novel, the Tate, and a micro-community on TikTok all have in common?
Adapting a Growth Model for a Not-For-Profit
Many strategy workshops hold an uncomfortable tension: some participants seek airtime for tough BAU and in-flight projects, and others want to generate and discuss novel ideas.
Think 'grasshopper' for Transformational change
Organisational transformation is often described as moving from 'start' to 'end' through one complex, messy and challenging stage.
Apply strategy with an Accountability Matrix
Not Keanu's matrix. Geologists refer to the material in which something beautiful, meaningful or desirable is embedded as the matrix.
Shift your organisation’s cadence
Your workplace has rhythms, whether you control them, are controlled by them, or just live alongside them.
Should strategy be correct?
Harry Beck's 1933 map of London's Underground is wildly inaccurate - it bears little relation to the geography of London. It is, genuinely, a lie.
Strategic accelerants – get through the mud
In his last 5 Minute Strategic Mindset newsletter, Andrew Hollo suggests three ways in which speed needs to be manifest in any business, or organisation.