Three heresies from an advisory board event
Last week I attended a pre-summit event with the Advisory Board Centre, a professional body for people who sit on advisory Boards that also helps private and family businesses set these Boards up.
Your AI will never have a mandate
An AI can't starve, can't be sacked, can't be ashamed. Accountability needs something that can be hurt.
Directors, put your body on the line
AI will soon write a polished strategy. Boards need to bring more than rationality to assess and approve.
Trust the feeling over the shape
Boards run on processes and rationales. Six weeks into yoga, I’m finding better questions to ask.
Chekhovian strategy misfires
Last weekend, I saw the Melbourne Theatre Company’s production of Uncle Vanya. The set design is the stand-out: there are no wings, lighting and spare chairs are stacked up and trucked flats stand ready upstage.
Talking to tape on a stick
I was lucky: my kids’ teenage years fell in the golden age of Marvel films. Up to Avengers: Endgame in 2019, every film was a family event.
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.
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
Build your "non-deformable passenger cell"
Most people haven’t heard of Béla Barényi. I’m going to nerd out on his influential automotive safety innovation, why it matters for strategy development, and then why i’ve moved my newsletters to be substack-first.
Can you see beyond your frame? Can you escape it?
How do you go about solving a problem? We're taught to first define the problem fully. But we should spend more time on how we are describing the problem in the first place - because the metaphor shapes our thinking, unconsciously. Framing matters.
Strategic Planning is neither
You spend months crafting a 'Strategic Plan', and everyone works to it diligently. Yet in every Board meeting, questions pop up, like: But are we really focusing on the right things?, or How do we know our strategy is working?
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.
Which chess strategy makes organisations thrive?
An academic at my uni, 30 years ago, was a former chess champion. He said there were two clusters of chess strategy.
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.