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Greg Githens is the author of How to Think Strategically (2019). He is a recognized thought leader in designing and delivering strategic initiatives.-
Read these recent articles
- The Skills Stack for Resilience
- Five tips for speaking truth to power
- Better Conversations Generate Better Strategy
- Insights Are the Secret Sauce of Strategy
- How a Strategic Decision Differs From a Tactical Decision
- Unlearning, learning, and a culture of strategic thinking
- How Mapping Can Improve Your Strategic Thinking
- How to Measure Business Acumen
- Strategy Execution as a Learning Process
- Why I favor a mental stance of disorder
- Critical Asking
- Transcending the Status Quo
- Connecting Strategy to Execution
- Complexity: Four Principles for Program Managers
- Use the PAVER Framework to Assure Strategic Commitments
- Strategic Experiments & Agile Responses
- Avoiding Four Pitfalls of Rapid Growth
- Operational Excellence or Strategic Excellence?
- Design Thinking: Five Landmarks for Strategic Initiatives
- Seven Must-Do’s for Better Strategy Execution
- Strategy as Problem Solving: An Example from a Large Technology Organization.
- Five Mental Anchors that Impede Your Strategic Initiative
- Five Must-Know Patterns of Disruption
- Beginners Guide: Competent Strategic Initiatives
- Volatility, Uncertainty, Complexity, & Ambiguity (VUCA)
- Four Recommendations for Effective Program Governance
- Six Strategic Thinking Skills: Developing the Proactiveness Habit
- What’s the #Strategy? Let Me Tell You a #Story
- Benefits of Being a Visible Expert
- Strategy is Not Long-Range Planning, Vision, Mission, or Values
- Five Ways to Involve Smart New Voices in the Strategy & Agile Innovation Conversation
- Is it Possible to Have a Perfect Strategy?
- Facilitating the Business Model Canvas: A Few Lessons Learned (Part 1)
- Designing Strategic Initiatives for Results: The Two Kinds of Coherence
- Perspective is More Powerful than Vision
- The Real Reason Strategy Implementation is Difficult (and the Solution to It)
- Grasping Essentials When You’re NOT the Expert
Talk to the Expert
Need a strategic planning facilitator, implementation coach, neutral mediator, workshop, seminar, or hands-on program manager? Greg Githens provides coaching, workshops, hands-on, and more. Contact him at GregoryDGithens@cs.com or 419.424.1164Categories
- Ambiguity and Strong-Minded Thinking
- Competencies of Strategic Initiative Leaders
- Examples of Strategic Initiatives
- How to Improve Your Story Telling Chops
- Incremental Benefits Delivery
- Interpreting Strategy Documents
- Program & Portfolio Management
- Strategic Planning Issues for Strategic Initiatives
- Strategy
- Strategy Coaching and Facilitation
- Strategy, Ambiguity, and Strong-Minded Thinking
- Success Principles for Strategic Initiatives
- Transforming the Organization
- Uncategorized
- Useful Practices & Management Tools
Category Archives: Strategy Coaching and Facilitation
How to Improve Strategic-Operational Collaboration
You can build support for strategy by understanding and using the strategy-operations polarity map.First, you acknowledge the values of the operational perspective (e.g., it gets results) and the downsides of strategy (it consumes time). Then, you can introduce some of the benefits of strategy work. This article will help the strategic initiative leader assure that the initiative does not flounder. Continue reading
Posted in Strategic Planning Issues for Strategic Initiatives, Strategy Coaching and Facilitation, Strategy, Ambiguity, and Strong-Minded Thinking, Transforming the Organization
Tagged Business operations, change management, commitment, culture, Leadership, polarity map, polarization, strategic initiatives, Strategic management, Strategic planning, Strategy, strategy execution, transformation
6 Comments
Strategic Initiative Benefit Propositions (Part 1): Identifying the Duties of Internal Stakeholders
Strategic initiatives deliver benefits to important stakeholders. This article explains how to identify benefits sought by internal stakeholders (CFO, CIO, and Treasury Managers as examples). Greg Githens explains that you should look at the individual’s job duties with respect to organizational performance and success. Understanding their duties can help the strategic initiative leader craft messages that increase acceptance for the vision and for the strategy. Continue reading
Posted in Incremental Benefits Delivery, Program & Portfolio Management, Strategy Coaching and Facilitation, Useful Practices & Management Tools
Tagged benefits, benefits identification, benefits realization, Business model, CFO, CIO, duty, economic benefits, program management, Project management, strategic initiatives
11 Comments
Fast and Effective Decisions Drive the Strategic Initiative
Fast and effective decisions drive the strategic initiative program. Greg Githens provides useful ideas for making faster and better decisions. Continue reading
Posted in Strategy Coaching and Facilitation, Success Principles for Strategic Initiatives, Useful Practices & Management Tools
Tagged agenda, Decision making, Decision tree, fast decisions, management tools, meetings, Problem Solving, program management, Strategic initiative, strategic mindset, strategic thinking, strategy execution, teams
5 Comments
Does Your Strategic Initiative Need a Fresh Perspective?
Greg explains how to overcome headwinds in a strategic initiative with 4 perspectives: storytelling, learning, integration, and decisions. He illustrates how each role is applied through a case study.
Posted in Competencies of Strategic Initiative Leaders, Examples of Strategic Initiatives, Strategy Coaching and Facilitation, Useful Practices & Management Tools
Tagged ambiguity, chief decision architect, chief integration officer, Chief learning officer, Chief storyteller, Competencies of Strategic Initiative Leaders, Decision making, Greg Githens, intuition, Issue management, Learning, management tools, partitioning problems, program management, questions, Strategic initiative, Strategic management, strategic thinking, strategy execution, teams, transformation, vision
1 Comment
Two Tools for Describing Strategic Context (Strategic Thinking Part 3)
Greg Githens explains the PESTLE acronym for evaluating strategic context, and the “walk the fenceline” technique. Strategic thinkers have an “outside in” perspective that allows them understand how external context affects strategy. Continue reading
Posted in Interpreting Strategy Documents, Strategic Planning Issues for Strategic Initiatives, Strategy Coaching and Facilitation, Strategy, Ambiguity, and Strong-Minded Thinking
Tagged ambiguity, Business, CSX, director of strategic initiatives, Greg Githens, innovation, Management, Pepsico, PESTLE, program management, strategic context, strategic environment, Strategic initiative, strategic thinking, strategy execution, strategy formulation, sustainability, vision
12 Comments
How to Energize Strategic Initiatives with Outcomes
Performance outcomes are time-based trends that serve to crystallize the strategic vision. This “how to execute strategy article” explains that the strategic initiative team builds a cause-effect model. Applying its model, the team develops the strategies that lead to the desired improvement in performance outcomes. Helpful tips are provided. Continue reading
Posted in Interpreting Strategy Documents, Strategy Coaching and Facilitation, Success Principles for Strategic Initiatives, Useful Practices & Management Tools
Tagged ambiguity, change management, collaboration, Competencies of Strategic Initiative Leaders, Decision making, Greg Githens, innovation, Management, management tools, program management, questions, revpar, stkeholder expectations, Strategic initiative, Strategic management, strategy execution, success metric, teams, transformation, vision
12 Comments
Strategy is a Boundary-Spanning Activity
Greg Githens explains how leaders develop the strategic initiative execution plan by integrating concepts. Vertical connections are done through metrics and horizontal connections are a search for strategic synergy. He explains a pitfall of many strategies, which is to focus on the solution rather than the problem or opportunity. An example is provided for Human Resources strategy. This post describes Step 3 of 4 for interpreting strategy documents. Continue reading
Posted in Interpreting Strategy Documents, Strategic Planning Issues for Strategic Initiatives, Strategy Coaching and Facilitation, Useful Practices & Management Tools
Tagged ambiguity, balanced score card, Balanced scorecard, horizontal integration, Initiative, open innovation, program management, Strategic initiative, Strategic management, Strategic Planning Issues for Strategic Initiatives, Strategy, strategy execution, strategy formulation, vertical integration, vision
6 Comments
Can You See Your Vision Statement?
An important task for the leader of a strategic initiative is to bring clarity to the vision statement. Provides criteria for a vision and 5 methods for improving a vision statement. Step 2 of a 4-part approach on interpreting strategy documents. Continue reading
Posted in Interpreting Strategy Documents, Strategy Coaching and Facilitation, Useful Practices & Management Tools
Tagged alignment, commitment, program management, Strategic initiative, Strategic management, Strategic Planning Issues for Strategic Initiatives, strategy document, strategy execution, vision
11 Comments
Action Items to Make You Sleep Better
Describes a practical tool for identifying issues in a strategic initiative, and explains how the tension can spark creative ideas. Continue reading
How to Use the “What About” Technique
Explains practices for managing issues and overcoming ambiguity: “what about,” nominal group technique, RADIO classification scheme. Continue reading
