-
Join 735 other subscribers
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
- Unlocking Strategic Thinking for Business Success – A Summit for Leaders and High Performers (Free)
- 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)
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: Useful Practices & Management Tools
Why I favor a mental stance of disorder
This article will be of particular interest for those readers who want improve their strategic thinking. The advice for you is straightforward: Assume you don’t understand the situation that you’re in. The dangers of the K.I.S.S. Maxim. For most, this … Continue reading
Critical Asking
A challenge of strategy execution is that visionary people (executives and managers) have visions, ideas, goals, and solutions; they need others to realize the benefits. Often, the tactical people react to the request with pushback: “That will never work. We … Continue reading
Transcending the Status Quo
I was recently asked about the reasons for the status quo, specifically the lack of attention given to selecting, prioritizing, and supporting strategic initiatives. Everyone knows that strategy is important, so how do you get people moving? Let’s start by describing … Continue reading
Connecting Strategy to Execution
I was recently asked, “How should the PMO (project management office) connect strategy to execution?” In order to provide a compact answer, I’m going to sidestep the more-fundamental challenges: organizations have too many projects, every project is important to someone … Continue reading
Complexity: Four Principles for Program Managers
I started writing this article to report and elaborate on eleven useful practices as identified in a 2014 Project Management Institute (PMI) publication titled Navigating Complexity: A Practice Guide. I thought it would be a straightforward project, but it morphed … Continue reading
Use the PAVER Framework to Assure Strategic Commitments
As they left the courthouse on the day their divorce was finalized, Mark apologized to his now ex-wife Renee, “I told you I would do some things for the benefit of our marriage. I didn’t do them, and I’m sorry.” … Continue reading
Strategic Experiments & Agile Responses
Most strategic initiatives involve complex environments. The emergent nature of complexity means that the use of experimentation is essential to progress. A good strategic initiatives design is one of experimenting, testing a hypothesis, and expecting emerging solutions. You want to … Continue reading
Five Must-Know Patterns of Disruption
Strategic initiatives are game-changing programs, thus either defend against or create disruption. Five patterns: 1. You’re either an incumbent or a disruptor. 2. Incumbents are disrupted when their attention is elsewhere. 3. Disruptive innovators have open minds and open objectives. 4. A disruption life cycle exists. 5. The strategic initiative leader and team have important responsibilities.
http://wp.me/pZCkk-11K Continue reading
Posted in Useful Practices & Management Tools
Tagged change the business, disruptive thinking
1 Comment
Volatility, Uncertainty, Complexity, & Ambiguity (VUCA)
Greg explains how to resolve volatility, uncertainty, complexity, and ambiguity for a strategic initiative. He also provides a critique of the so-called VUCA prime model (vision, understanding, clarity, & agility) concluding that the VUCA prime model is only 25% valid.
http://wp.me/pZCkk-11q 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
Leading Strategic Initiatives 