ClearPurpose

The Great Game of Business is an enjoyable book with ideas that any manager can implement to some extent. And for the subset of businesses that look a lot like Springfield Remanufacturing Corp., the entire Great Game of Business model could drive impressive results.

My biggest issue with the book, though, is with its focus on managing a business entirely based on the financials. I appreciate the authors’ argument that if a company isn’t making money and generating cash, nothing else matters, but I still think, at least in many industries, focusing on strategy and differentiation is much more important than the authors are willing to acknowledge. 

But overall I enjoyed the book. I liked the authors’ folksy writing style. I felt like I was having a conversation with Jack Stack about his business. I really enjoy reading the stories of businesses as they work through critical moments and The Great Game of Business is full of those stories. I also like frameworks and lists that provide structure to the lessons being shared and that help make those lessons applicable to other companies. There are two main frameworks used in parallel throughout the book: a list of “Higher Laws of Business” and a set of five tools that make up the GGOB model.

Click here to read the full review.

What good are metrics if they don’t help you make decisions?

I’m currently working with two clients on developing strategy maps to help translate their strategies into tangible plans. Identifying metrics or KPIs (key performance indicators) is an important part of the strategy mapping process. 

Like many aspects of strategic planning, coming up with a list of metrics that looks good on paper is easy, but developing a management framework that actually helps you make hard decisions takes deep understanding, research, and careful consideration.

Most financial metrics are by nature “lagging” indicators — meaning that they tell you what has already happened. Ultimately, most businesses are looking for profitable revenue growth so it is natural to track revenue, margins, and the underlying key drivers (e.g. volume, price, expenses) over time. Similarly, most companies will track key lagging indicators like customer satisfaction and churn to indicate whether or not your business is creating value for customers. These lagging KPIs can give you a good sense for how healthy your business is today, and trends in these metrics are a good indication of what the future might hold.

But what you really need are “leading” indicators — ones that predict in advance of what is coming. Even better are indicators that can help you make specific decisions to improve future customer and owner value creation.

How does that work? 

Read the full article to learn how.

I just completed a total redesign of my website, so it seems like a good opportunity to discuss the linkage from strategy to execution. I believe that everything in your business should start with the strategy. If you have a well formulated and understood business strategy, then you have a framework to easily make the decisions necessary to develop your messaging strategy. And if you have a crisp and coherent messaging strategy, you have a framework for easily making the execution decisions in positioning your business in the marketplace.

You can read the full article here where I walk through that process from business strategy to messaging strategy to web site implementation. I hope it’s helpful to you!

Thanks to new research published by professors at USC and UTSA in the Journal of Marketing, business leaders have a new way of thinking about the adoption of new disruptive technologies and therefore making critical strategic decisions about how they choose to compete.

In the early 1960s, Everett Rogers codified decades of research into the Diffusion of Innovations curve, which tremendously helped business leaders understand market adoption of disruptive technologies. In the early 1990s, Geoffrey Moore advanced this work with his Technology Adoption Life Cycle, which helped innovative business leaders better understand what they can do to manage through these transitions. Now, another 30 years on, Chandrasekaran et al are developing a new Successive Technology Diffusion Model which, I believe, will help both incumbent and disruptive business leaders make the most important strategic decisions for the survival of their companies.

Read the full article here.

Nerds 2.0.1 is one of my favorite books of all time. Maybe that’s the geek in me, or the history fan, or one who really enjoys a good story, or probably all of the above. That’s why today I’ve written a review of a 23 year old book. That and the fact that the history of the Internet began in very scary times when the future seemed uncertain. Nerds 2.0.1 is a story of hope and overcoming seemingly insurmountable obstacles. It’s a story that I think many could benefit from here at the beginning of 2021.

Nerds 2.0.1 tells the early history of the Internet. Published in 1998 to accompany a PBS television series, the Internet it describes may not be familiar to those that are constantly connected to life and work via the web today, so don’t expect it to provide useful tips for how to leverage the latest social networks for business success. What it does tell is a story of how persistence, ingenuity, and hard work can overcome the greatest challenges and prove expert skeptics wrong. 

Read the full review here.

Uncharted has shown up on a number of lists of the top books of 2020. Given how 2020 has convinced us that the future is uncharted and unpredictable, there’s a real hunger for an answer to how we can navigate the future. I picked up the book hoping it contained some new approaches and tools that I could use in my work with clients. I wanted quick and easy practical steps and instead the author delivered long and messy stories of real life. She’s a great storyteller and her chapters are full of compelling stories, but no easy answers.

Read the full review here.

The audiobook version of A Sprint to the Finish, read by the author, is available now from a number of leading retailers (more coming soon).

You can currently find it at:

• Google Play
• Apple
• Kobo/WalMart
• Audiobooks.com
• NOOK Audiobooks
• Chirp
• Scribd

I hope you find it interesting, entertaining, and informative!

One of the online classes I took this year was “Robots in Society: Blessing or Curse” offered by Delft University of Technology. Last week I was informed that the final paper I submitted for the course had been selected for their “Hall of Fame”. 

The Connected Intelligence Revolution is the collision of advanced data processing technologies with massive amounts of available data, resulting in new ways that we see the world, anticipate the future, make decisions, and take action.

This revolution promises great benefits for companies, individuals, and society, but it also introduces great dangers. In a global economy, with rapidly changing technologies, ensuring that no one gets left behind is a complex, multifaceted challenge that requires action and commitment at the individual, company, industry, national, and international levels. I believe that the actions I have outlined in this paper are reasonable, realistic, and can result in a positive outcome for all stakeholders.

Read the full paper.