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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: Success Principles for Strategic Initiatives
Avoiding Four Pitfalls of Rapid Growth
I was recently invited to join an expert panel who were addressing the challenges of strategic initiatives. This question was asked, and what follows is my response: What is your best advice for avoiding common pitfalls during rapid growth? #1. Adding … Continue reading
Design Thinking: Five Landmarks for Strategic Initiatives
I find that when I adopt a design-thinking mentality, I develop more effective approaches for a strategic initiative. Here are five important landmarks of design thinking. Functionality – Strategic initiatives, by definition, are endeavors intended to close an organizational performance … Continue reading
Seven Must-Do’s for Better Strategy Execution
A 2005 survey identified seven factors necessary to close the strategy-to-performance gap and those factors are valid for strategic initiatives launched in the present day. The survey 197 senior executives at companies with sales of at least $500 million. You can … Continue reading
Beginners Guide: Competent Strategic Initiatives
Do you want to become more competent in the arts of strategic initiative leadership? This article explains the acquisition of competency as a learning journey, with the key point being acquiring “reflective competency.” Because strategic initiatives involve many areas of knowledge, the author suggests starting with a few fundamentals and expanding the base of knowledge and “knowledge in action.” http://wp.me/pZCkk-11A Continue reading
Four Recommendations for Effective Program Governance
This article discusses good design of program governance, tailored to the special case of strategic initiatives. It identifies three common mistakes, and then four recommendations. The recommendations are: 1) People respect what you inspect, 2) Allow for mistakes, 3) You want to selectively impose policy, and 4) Design so that the organization is concentrating on the decisive aspects of the strategy. The article concludes with few remarks on striking a balance between conflicting needs such as strategy and risk management.
http://wp.me/pZCkk-11e Continue reading
Five Ways to Involve Smart New Voices in the Strategy & Agile Innovation Conversation
Organizations need to include new, smart voices in their strategy development and in their strategic initiatives. The author provides five suggestions: Engage, Listen, Tweet, Encourage Disruptive Thinking, Learn
http://wp.me/pZCkk-Gl Continue reading
Designing Strategic Initiatives for Results: The Two Kinds of Coherence
A leader of a strategic initiative should be asking this question, How can I recognize and increase the coherence and integrity of my strategic initiative? The article describes the concept of coherence and explains that there is narrative coherence and design coherence. The author advises starting with narrative coherence and look at the elements of storytelling to find a tension between two forces and then articulating possible futures, as the strategic initiative is an attempt to navigate the organization towards that new future. Look to identify, historically, how constraints were addressed. Finally, a function of leadership is to impose design onto an organization by persuasion or by more formal authority mechanisms.
http://wp.me/pZCkk-ZS Continue reading
Perspective is More Powerful than Vision
Having a perspective means that the ideas and direction are open to discussion, inviting more people into the discussion to contribute their perspectives. Importantly, it avoids the elitist nature of many vision statements.
How to Prioritize Strategic Initiatives
This article concludes with five recommendations for prioritizing strategic initiatives. It describes a the challenges that organizations face with too many projects, and explains that strategy is used to screen all of these important – or so-called strategic – projects into a much smaller portfolio of projects.
http://wp.me/pZCkk-OG Continue reading
Posted in Interpreting Strategy Documents, Program & Portfolio Management, Strategic Planning Issues for Strategic Initiatives, Success Principles for Strategic Initiatives
Tagged Enterprise PMO, portfolio management, prioritizing projects, program management office, project management office, Strategic initiative, Strategic management, Strategic planning, Strategic PMO
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Accountability is the Willingness to Have Your Performance Measured
Accountability is frequently cited as a strategic initiative success factor.Strategic initiatives reflect and are constrained by the culture, but a leader and create a “micro-culture” for the team. With that idea in mind, I offer this definition, Accountability is the willingness to have your performance measured. The practical implications are: Performance outcomes must be known. Consequences should be discussed. Transparency is valued in the initiative. Sponsor and program roles become clearer. Integrity becomes thought of as the alignment of thought, words, and actions.
Trust is improved. Continue reading
Leading Strategic Initiatives 