By Professor John Hale, The Strategy Guy. Updated 10 July 2026.

This month I had the privilege of presenting on the final day of QStrata 2026 with my Strategic Thinking Under Pressure keynote. There's nothing quite like a ballroom full of managers and leaders wanting to learn how to ask better questions.

McKinsey research shows executives now spend nearly 40% of their time making decisions, yet 61% admit at least half of that time is used badly. Better questions are the fastest fix.

A second highlight came after the keynote, when a motivated group of strata managers and business owners joined my breakout session on Business Negotiation Skills. We ran multiple three-way role-plays and in a surprisingly short space of time the group successfully immersed themselves deeply in the art of the deal.

Thanks to Laura Bos and her entire SCAQ team for inviting me.

Do you have a conference or strategy retreat coming up?

If so, I'd love to connect to shape your event and help create a brighter fut...

By Professor John Hale, The Strategy Guy. Updated 10 July 2026.

Small business really is the engine room. 97.3% of Australian businesses are small businesses and together they employ more than five million people.

On Tuesday 26 May 2026, the Queensland Small Business Month Expo returns to the Brisbane Convention and Exhibition Centre, and I will be MC for the day in the Boulevard Auditorium. Free event, around 400 seats, a strong program and an audience of Queensland small business owners who have given up their day to come and learn something useful.

That is the brief I keep coming back to as I prep.

Whatever happens on the day, those owners need to leave better equipped than they arrived.

The Program

It is a serious lineup for a small business audience.

The Reserve Bank of Australia opens the day with the economic outlook. Tom Pagram from Virgin Australia translates AI from a buzzword into something a small business can use on Monday morning. Robert McRuvie from the Brisbane 2...

By Professor John Hale, The Strategy Guy. Updated 10 July 2026.

The Society for Human Resource Management puts the cost of replacing one employee at between half and two times their annual salary, and around three quarters of employers admit they have made at least one bad hire.

Strategy only works when you juggle your people to ensure you have the right people in the right seats. 

It was a privilege to dive deep into the six steps of the strategic mindset with a room full of HR recruiters and managers and business owners. Before I even spoke about strategy, I shared the golden rule: strategy is only effective once you get the right people on the bus and the wrong people off the bus and the right people in the right seats.

Once that foundation is set cultivating a strategic mindset becomes a powerful force for growth. This was the core of our recent Sips of Insights breakfast overlooking the beautiful Brisbane River.

A massive thank you to Imogen Storie and her amazing team at MAY...

By Professor John Hale, The Strategy Guy. Updated 10 July 2026.

This is not soft stuff. Stanford research shows leaders who use humour are rated 27% more motivating and a survey of 700 CEOs found 98% would rather hire someone with a sense of humour.

Melbourne is alive with the Comedy Festival right now. It is a proud moment for me as my daughter Lauren is the Festival Marketing Coordinator this year. Seeing her 200+ design efforts and marketing strategy across the city is a reminder that visibility is the first step of any great plan.

Strategy is often buried in spreadsheets but comedians are the ultimate strategists. They master timing, audience psychology and the pivot. Watching Jimeoin on Saturday night highlighted how "Stagecraft" applies to business.

Finding the Human in the Process

Jimeoin excels at the mundane, like the "private sneeze" versus the "public implode." In business, we often get lost in "portal forms" and "acronym traps." We forget that a human being sits at the...

By Professor John Hale, The Strategy Guy. Updated 10 July 2026

The ABS projects the number of Australians aged 85 and over will more than double by 2041.

The question is whether we treat that as a cost or as the largest store of lived wisdom the country has ever held.

So, whether you are standing beneath a wedding arch or centre stage at a prestigious club, there is an old rhyme that carries a certain kind of power.

Something old, something new, something borrowed and something blue.

I usually associate this with a walk down the aisle. Last week, those four pillars supported a very different moment in my journey as a speaker.

Stepping on the Carindale Probus Club stage to address a room of mostly septuagenarians and octogenarians, was a brand new experience for me. These were men and women who had lived storied lives and seen it all, which naturally raises the stakes for anyone holding a microphone.

To meet the moment, I leaned on four grounding elements.

Something Old
The audi...

By Professor John Hale, The Strategy Guy. Updated 10 July 2026

This morning one of my favourite clients explained the challenges she is facing in supporting one of her own clients. She has been called into to help fix and support a dysfunctional team.

As I listened, I noted this team has low trust and an absence of real safety and collaboration. Despite strong technical capability in the leader, the team is not functioning well and the strain is showing up in both performance and morale.

Google reached the same conclusion after studying 180 of its own teams. Psychological safety, not talent density, was the number one factor in team performance.

With my client, three patterns stood out.

Despite appearances, the first was a lack of authenticity from the business owner. The owner leads in a tough, boss-like way and rarely shows any genuine vulnerability. While this may feel protective or necessary to her, it means the team never truly trusts her. People comply with instructions, but...

The Next Evolutionary Leap won’t be Biological

At a recent event at the Pullman Reef Hotel in Cairns, I met Jacob Perrett from Great Energy.

When I asked for a volunteer from an audience of hundred and fifty people, Jacob put his hand up and joined me on stage. Together we explored the difference between the shape of a Neanderthal skull and a modern human skull.

Neanderthals were exceptional at sensing and perceiving their environment. Homo sapiens evolved differently, with a larger frontal cortex that enabled social organisation, collaboration and shared strategy. That difference explains why Neanderthals became extinct and why Homo sapiens dominated.

With modern sensory technologies and the rise of Artificial General Intelligence, these evolutionary patterns are worth paying attention to.

AGI will increasingly perform functions once central to human identity; sensing, predicting, thinking, writing, planning, remembering and creating. Over time, our doubting AI may feel inefficie...

Strategy that is truly timeless often looks radically simple. You only experience the true benefits of strategy when you practise it repeatedly until it becomes second nature.

Over the past five months I’ve been applying the same framework I use when facilitating strategy for organisations to an unexpected personal project: recovering my knee and avoiding surgery.

My strategy framework is simple:

Q1. What is really going on here?

Q2. What are our options?

Q3. What will we do?

What is really going on here?

This step is about confronting reality honestly, not avoiding it, not minimising it. It means spending the time and effort to understand the situation and gaining clarity for creating options.

After my post-marathon sprinting strain, I did the usual rest, lengthen and strengthen work: swimming, cycling, VMO and glute strengthening, backwards walking and run/walk protocols, slowly sharpening the picture.

Then the time came, as the Walrus once said, “To talk of other things. Of...

I'm thrilled to be invited back to Cairns to speak at a Remembrance Day luncheon at the Pullman Reef Hotel Casino about something every organisation strives to be in increasingly unpredictable times: resilient.

Here’s the reality:

> Around 70% of businesses are fragile, lasting no more than five years.
> About 20% survive between five and twenty years and are robust.
> Only 10% are truly resilient and last beyond twenty years because they consistently make great strategic choices.

In a world where customers adapt fast, resilience isn’t luck, it’s strategy.

I’ll be unpacking the Five Horsemen of Strategic Resilience:

1. Beach Heads – Win small scale big
2. Resource Reallocation – Feed the future starve the past
3. Mergers and Acquisitions – Merge for capability not just size
4. Brand Extension – Stretch without snapping
5. Shift the Efficiency Frontier – Rebuild the engine while you’re still driving

If you’re leading a business in FNQ or simply care about building something that lasts, join us for ...

Second Chapter Men starts in October

Do you know a man who needs support for their second chapter?

Many men reach their 40s, 50s, and 60s carrying a quiet burden. They’ve worked hard, sacrificed for family, given to their careers, communities and countries. 

Noble as that is, the cost is often high: exhaustion, disconnection from intimacy, lack of purpose, declining health or a slow retreat from life.

Second Chapter Man is about changing that story.

WHY IT MATTERS?

When men grow, families grow. When men connect, communities strengthen. When men heal, the next generation benefits.

If you’re a man 40+ looking for deeper self-care, clarity and connection, this is for you.

If you love a man in this season of his life; your partner, father, brother, colleague, son or friend, consider encouraging him to enrol.

Sometimes a gentle nudge from someone who cares can make all the difference.

WHAT IS IT?

A program over three Sundays for men 40+ who are ready to:

> Care for their health,...