Like a chess player, every business owner makes a series of moves. If the number of winning moves outweighs the losing ones, the business may survive. When the number of winning moves significantly outstrips losing moves, the business thrives. Waiting is considered a move when it is done consciously. 

Every business experiences inertia, entropy and bias. When these three take a hold, businesses ‘fall asleep at the wheel.’ Once asleep, companies believe they can’t predict the future and have little hope of changing it. This sort of thinking is ‘the elephant in the room’ and reduces competitiveness and profitability.

The best approach to the elephant in the room is to create the future. My most successful clients regularly commit to four high-level days over six to eight weeks.

DAY 1 - UNDERSTANDING

Once the right people are in the room and in the right seats, I facilitate conversations that deliver a clear and dispassionate view of the industry and it's future value chain. We revisi...

There is a Zen saying... “The Great Way is not difficult for those who have no preferences.” In Zen, the true nature of things or Tao can be found in moments of choiceness awareness. To deny the truth of things is to miss reality. If we allow our personal preferences to impact our choices, our choices will be grounded in personhood rather than reality. 

The Jesuits and many others understand personhood this way. “Give me a child until they are seven years of age and I will show you the adult.” EEG scanners reveal that in the first years of life our brain frequencies are much slower and we spend a great deal of time under the influence of Theta waves. Theta waves are pre-conscious in nature, which means as little children we are highly impressionable and programmable. These preferences and conditions in our holding environment, before the age of seven, are systematically laid down in our personality. 

Our personality based choices are spontaneous, unconscious and automatic. Many of us...

Some sobering facts about businesses are:

96% of firms fail within ten years [and that was before the pandemic].

79% say they have insufficient time to do strategic planning [that was also before the pandemic].

67% say they have insufficient strategy skills in-house.

Last night I had the pleasure of speaking to 30 grateful, heroic and youthful (and co-operative ;-) members of the Brisbane Rotaract in the Brisbane CBD.

Early in my talk, I polled the audience. Everyone in the room (100%) felt that strategy was important. Around 30% of my humble audience shared that they were good at strategy, but tragically only 5% felt their organisations did enough to train them to think strategically!

Does your firm or organisation do enough to teach its leaders and teams to think and operate strategically?

#strategicmindset
#johnhalespeaker
#thestrategyguy
#thestrategynote
#thestrategybook
#rotaract
#brisbane

It is important to know that businesses grow through six stages. 

Stage 1 - Existence

Stage 2 - Survival

Stage 3 - Success

Stage 4 - Take-Off

Stage 5 - Maturity

Stage 6 – Reinvention

In the early stages of business growth, a good strategy can be helpful. However, there are often few new decisions to make, and a business owner spends most of their time working in the business. As a firm enjoys more success, with the right strategy, it can eventually take off and become a mature business. As each business grows, the number of decisions required expands rapidly, and the business owner needs to work 'on the business' and not in it. 

After speaking with business owners and leaders at the Hilton Cairns last month, it was clear that some mature tourist-related Cairns and Port Douglas businesses had slipped back into survival mode and had come along to learn the six-steps of the Strategic Mindset Process to help revive their business. 

#thestrategyguy

#thestrategybook

#thestrateg...

My daughter Lauren, who illustrated my latest strategy book, dropped in today to practice dinosaur face painting. On me!

Today many businesses are realizing that their current strategy won’t last forever. The terrain keeps changing. One day, solid rock will become quicksand. Ask any former Kodak, Sears, Borders, or Blockbuster executive. Recently, paleontologists excavated a whole pack of carnivorous dinosaurs that chased some plant-eating dinosaurs into an area of quicksand, where they all sank.

The Strategy eBook will stop your firm from getting stuck in quicksand.

Many businesses thinking about tomorrow realise that they need a formula for success in the digital economy. New machines are not just coming up with answers. They are finding the questions. Supercomputers, big data, and machine learning are predicting many of life’s events before they happen. As the line between human and artificial intelligence merges, I see that businesses are becoming more digital or becoming dinosaurs. ...

A SWOT analysis is a strategic planning tool used to evaluate the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats (SWOT) facing a business or organisation.

To apply a SWOT analysis to Estée Lauder Companies, you would need to first identify the company's strengths, which are internal factors that give the company an advantage over its competitors. Some examples of strengths for Estée Lauder Companies might include a strong brand reputation, a wide range of high-quality products, and a loyal customer base.

Next, you would need to identify the company's weaknesses, which are internal factors that may hinder its ability to compete. Some examples of weaknesses for Estée Lauder Companies might include a reliance on a small number of key distributors, a lack of presence in certain geographic markets, or a limited product line.

After identifying the company's strengths and weaknesses, you would then need to identify its opportunities, which are external factors that the company could tak...

PESTEL analysis is a strategic planning tool used to evaluate the impact of external factors on a business or organisation. For Kenneth Frazier CEO of Merck Co, to apply a PESTEL analysis to his firm, he would need to consider the following six categories of external factors:

1.  Political: This includes factors such as government policies, political stability, and regulatory environment. For Merck Co, this might include considerations such as the impact of healthcare reform in the United States, or the potential for changes in patent laws that could affect the company's ability to bring new products to market.
2.  Economic: This includes factors such as economic growth, exchange rates, and inflation. For Merck Co, this might include considerations such as the impact of economic downturns on demand for the company's products, or the potential for currency fluctuations to affect the company's bottom line.
3.  Sociocultural: This includes factors such as demographics, values, and lifestyles....

Porter's Five Forces is a framework for analysing the competitive forces in an industry. It can be used to evaluate the attractiveness of an industry and to identify opportunities and threats within it. In this analysis, we will apply Porter's Five Forces to the technology giant Microsoft Corporation.

1.  Threat of new entrants: Microsoft has a high barrier to entry due to its strong brand recognition and widespread customer loyalty. In addition, the technology industry has high research and development costs, which can be a deterrent for new entrants. Finally, Microsoft has established partnerships and network effects that make it difficult for new firms to compete. Overall, the threat of new entrants is low for Microsoft.
2.  Threat of substitute products or services: There is a moderate threat of substitutes for Microsoft's products and services. While Microsoft has a strong presence in the personal computer and productivity software markets, there are many other firms that offer simi...

Coca-Cola is a multinational beverage company that offers a wide range of products, including carbonated and non-carbonated soft drinks, fruit juices, sports drinks, and ready-to-drink teas and coffees. As of 2021, the company had more than 200 products in its portfolio.

To determine which products should be supported, we can apply the BCG matrix to Coca-Cola's product portfolio. The BCG matrix is a tool used in strategic management to evaluate the relative market position and potential of a business unit or product line. It is based on the idea that a business should allocate resources to products or business units based on their potential for growth and relative market share.

The BCG matrix consists of four quadrants: high market growth and high market share (stars), high market growth and low market share (question marks), low market growth and high market share (cash cows), and low market growth and low market share (dogs).

Stars are products or business units with high market g...

Facebook is a multinational technology company that offers a wide range of products and services, including a social media platform, messaging app, virtual reality technology, and digital marketing services. To determine which specific products and services should be offered to emerging markets and which should be further enhanced for existing markets, we can apply the Ansoff Matrix to Facebook's portfolio.

The Ansoff Matrix is a tool used in strategic management to evaluate growth opportunities for a business. It is based on the idea that a company can pursue growth through existing products and existing markets (market penetration), new products and existing markets (product development), existing products and new markets (market development), or new products and new markets (diversification).

Based on this analysis, Facebook could consider the following options for its various businesses:

Market penetration: Facebook's social media platform and messaging app, such as Facebook, ...