Strategic Speed: Behind the Scenes

We’ve discovered the keys to speed of strategy execution, and they’re not what you might think: Clarity: Shared, clear understanding of your situation and direction Unity: Wholehearted agreement on the merits of that direction and the need to work together to move ahead Agility: Willingness to turn and adapt quickly while keeping strategic goals in [...]

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Fires and Festina Lente

In our recent post, we began exploring fire-fighting in business.  Everyone wants to speed up important initiatives, but often companies fail to achieve true speed because their leaders and employees are too busy dashing around with a fire hose. Instead of telling your people to hurry up, consider telling them:  “Festina lente.” Festina lente was [...]

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Do You Fan the Flames or Fight the Fire?—or Both?

By Steve Barry “How can we execute on a strategy if we’re busy fighting fires all day?” This question came up in our recent webinar on driving strategic initiatives.  Fire fighting is a seemingly bulletproof “yeah, but”:  “Yeah, I know that is the new strategy, but (insert your own ‘fire’ here: the client’s going to [...]

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Leader as Archeologist

by Steve Barry A friend of mine consults with hospitals.  At the end of a particularly grueling and frustrating engagement, I asked him over drinks what he learned.  “All change,” he said, “and resistance to change, comes down to politics.” I was reminded of the “four hurdles to strategy execution” from Blue Ocean Strategy: Political [...]

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How to develop leaders differently to “think and act faster”

We are using this space as a means to answer your questions from a recent webinar we hosted on the 10 Ways Fast Companies Accelerate Strategy Execution. Here is part 3 of our answers to your questions. Please click here for a recording of the webinar Question: How do you measure alignment? This is a tough question to [...]

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The 4 Speed Trap Profiles

In a previous blog entry, I wrote that we would use this space as a means to answer questions from our recent webinar on the 10 Ways Fast Companies Accelerate Strategy Execution.  (Please click here for a recording of the webinar).   Here is part 2 of our answers to your questions. Question:  Can you elaborate on the [...]

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Going Fast in Resource Constrained Companies

For a recording of the North America and Europe Webinar, click here I recently co-hosted, along with my colleague Henry Frechette, a Forum webinar for North America & Europe entitled “The 10 Ways Fast Companies Accelerate Strategy Execution.”    The topic of Acceleration seems to be a hot button topic – participants had more questions [...]

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What Managers Often Overlook

by Tom Atkinson For a recording of the North America and Europe webinar, click here. Here is the final question raised by participants in our recent Forum webinar for North America and Europe entitled “Using Climate to Drive Employee Engagement.”  I was joined by climate expert Henry Frechette of Forum and by Joe Price of [...]

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How is Climate Different from Culture, or Engagement?

by Tom Atkinson For a recording of the North America and Europe webinar, click here. Here are some more questions raised by participants in our recent Forum webinar for North America and Europe entitled “Using Climate to Drive Employee Engagement.”  I was joined by climate expert Henry Frechette of Forum and by Joe Price of [...]

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How to Measure and Get Buy-in on Climate

by Tom Atkinson For a recording of the North America & Europe webinar, click here. I recently hosted a Forum webinar for North America & Europe entitled “Using Climate to Drive Employee Engagement.”  I was joined by climate expert Henry Frechette of Forum and by Joe Price of Aflac—which has recently boosted the performance of [...]

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