Some leaders walk into chaos and find clarity. Others walk into the same room and freeze. After 28 years in strategy sessions with some of the world's most senior leaders, I can tell you the difference is not intelligence, experience or resources.

It is three questions. Asked consistently. In the right order. Every time.

I call them the three whats.

Q1. What Is Really Going On?

Most leadership teams think they already know. They do not.

What they know is the story they have told themselves, filtered through bias, blind spots and the sanitised version of reality their organisation has learned to present upward. The most common failure I see is not bad strategy. It is leaders acting decisively on a false picture of reality.

Leaders who outperform build habits that counteract this. They sense their environment deliberately. They ask uncomfortable questions. They create conditions where people feel safe enough to say what is happening, not what the boss wants to hear.

Right now, tha...

BOOKED FOR BUNDABERG

Next month I'm heading north to spend a night and a morning with the wonderful folk of the Bundaberg & District Chamber of Commerce. Businesses of all shapes and sizes.

So I rang my mate "Duncan" and the A team: Tim Sayre, David, Bevan, Brooke, Nathan Bedford, Erika, Horst, Cheryl, Margaret, Andrew Lane, Rachael, Barry, Etienne and Rebecca.

"Righto," says Duncan. "What are we drinkin'?"

I says, "What've you got on offer up there in Bundy?"

And he gave me the list of global drinks they make right there in town: rum, beer, ginger beer, root beer, sarsaparilla, lemon lime & bitters, creaming soda, pink grapefruit, blood orange, passionfruit, guava, peach and mango.

Now that's what I call a portfolio of options!

I said to Duncan, "Line 'em up, mate. I'll try them all… but after my keynote!"

We'll be talking about Strategic Resilience:

• Strategy: knowing where you're going and why.
• Adaptability: when to change course without losing your way.
• Resilience: comi
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