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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
Tag Archives: Decision making
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
The Real Reason Strategy Implementation is Difficult (and the Solution to It)
There are two people-related problems that cause poor strategy execution: stakeholders lack a mutual understanding of the nature of the situation & the organization’s social and emotional environment is not supportive for individuals to step outside of their comfort zone. To overcome, use the concepts of dialogue and deliberation, following the analogy of jury duty. An effective jury reaches consensus. Similarly, and effective strategy is one that reaches consensus; that is, people agree to support the implementation. Continue reading
Scope Creep in Strategic Initiatives: How to Recognize It and Avoid It
Scope creep is a frequently-heard complaint. The word scope is ambiguous; experience shows that even highly experienced and trained professionals cannot agree on its meaning. The Includes-Excludes Table is a simple two-column table with the word “in” placed at the top of the left column and “out” at the top of the right column. It helps us to visualize scope creep as something that was determined to be “out” now has crept over the line to become “in.” The advice for the strategic initiative leader is straightforward: pay attention to the partitioning of in and out. Don’t let something that is out cross the line unless you understand the impacts on the governance of the program. Also, use preferred modifiers: Problem Scope, Product Scope, and Work Scope.
This process of describing the in and out, and making choices, encourages the strategist to think about their business model in a more complete and logical way. The Includes-Excludes Table can help you stay focused on root causes and core strategic problems. They key is to maintain a focus on the problem scope, and avoid the tendency to start designing solutions and implementing them.
http://wp.me/pZCkk-XW Continue reading
Apple versus Samsung: Three Lessons for Strategic Initiative Leaders
Here are three lessons for strategic initiative leaders drawn from analysis of the Samsung Apple iPhone patent infringement verdict. 1. Tell the better story. 2. Make better strategic bets. 3. Value originality. Continue reading
Path Finding and Way Finding
Path finding for a strategic initiative is composed of the activities of pattern searching, sense making, and nudging. It is a straightforward method for addressing strategic complexity. Greg Githens first provides the analogy of path finding through a forest, and then briefly illustrates with examples from Google, Wal-Mart, and Domino’s Pizza. Please provide comments. Continue reading
Posted in Competencies of Strategic Initiative Leaders, Strategy Coaching and Facilitation, Success Principles for Strategic Initiatives, Useful Practices & Management Tools
Tagged ambiguity, Decision making, Pathfinding, Project management, Stakeholder (corporate), Strategic initiative, Strategic management, strategic thinking, strategy execution
6 Comments
A Master List of Questions for Strategic Initiatives
More than 80 good questions for leaders of strategic initiatives, provided by Greg Githens, who notes that “leaders lead by asking questions.” These questions are categorized: strategic path finding; betterment of risk, issues, and decisions; and elaborating requirements, solution design, and value propositions. Continue reading
Posted in Competencies of Strategic Initiative Leaders, Useful Practices & Management Tools
Tagged ambiguity, Competencies of Strategic Initiative Leaders, Decision making, leading strategic initiatives, questions, strategic initiatives, Strategic Planning Issues for Strategic Initiatives, strategic thinking
3 Comments
How to Build Consensus in the Strategic Initiatives Team
Consensus is a vital skill for strategic initiatives. Consensus means that there is 100% agreement to support the IMPLEMENTATION of the decision. Greg Githens explains the two necessary factors for achieving consensus (define the team and have a visible signal) and describes a personal experience in helping an IT group reach agreement on requirements. Continue reading
Three Templates: Strategic Initiative Benefit Propositions (Part 2)
How to write benefits propositions by stating “Because of ___” and “you will___.” Greg Githens calls the three templates direct mail, brag, and experiences. He provides an interesting graphic that displays the tradeoffs of benefits where the claims (brag) style is more objective and economic and the experience style develops more profound commitment to the strategic initiative. Continue reading
Posted in Incremental Benefits Delivery, Useful Practices & Management Tools
Tagged benefits proposition, buy in, claims, commitment, Decision making, economic benefits, emotive benefits, experience, program management, strategic initiatives, Strategic management, templates, value proposition
7 Comments
Resolving Ambiguity and Uncertainty (Strategic Thinking – Part 4)
Strategic initiatives leaders must understand the difference between ambiguity and uncertainty. Uncertainty deals with explicit questions, whereas ambiguity raises the point, “Are we asking the right questions?” Both are useful concepts, and strategic thinkers have tools (most importantly, questions) for dealing with both. This article continues a series on strategic thinking. Continue reading
Posted in Competencies of Strategic Initiative Leaders, Strategic Planning Issues for Strategic Initiatives, Success Principles for Strategic Initiatives
Tagged ambiguity, analysis paralysis, cone of uncertainty, Decision making, explicit model, fast decisions, Motorola, risk management, Strategic initiative, strategic initiatives, Strategic Planning Issues for Strategic Initiatives, strategic thinking, uncertainty
9 Comments
Leading Strategic Initiatives 