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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
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- Useful Practices & Management Tools
Tag Archives: Organizational culture
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
Five Things SI Leaders Need to Know about Innovation
Leaders use the word innovation frequently, but often it’s a buzzword. Innovation is not the same thing as invention or as creativity. Innovations do not sell themselves. It is a gross exaggeration to declare that people “resist change.” Innovation involves choices and decisions. Leaders help others cross the chasm. Greg Githens explains the TACOS criteria for speeding the adoption of an innovation. http://wp.me/pZCkk-fH Continue reading
Posted in Competencies of Strategic Initiative Leaders, Success Principles for Strategic Initiatives, Transforming the Organization
Tagged ambiguity, Business case, commitment, Competencies of Strategic Initiative Leaders, Decision making, Greg Githens, innovation, open innovation, Organizational culture, Strategic initiative, transformation, vision
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How to Secure Buy In for Your Strategic Initiative
Greg Githens explains that commitment – or “buy in” – means people accept and support a specific concept or course of action. He explains how to advocate benefits to stakeholders. Benefits are of two types: emotive (soft) and economic. The secret sauce is to establish the emotive benefits first, which serves to motivate stakeholders and buys time for acquiring economic benefits. Continue reading
Posted in Program & Portfolio Management, Success Principles for Strategic Initiatives, Useful Practices & Management Tools
Tagged change management, commitment, Competencies of Strategic Initiative Leaders, economic benefits, emotive benefits, Greg Githens, how to secure buy in, Jack Welch, Organizational culture, program management, Sales, secret sauce, Six Sigma, soft benefits, Strategic initiative, StratEx, vision
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Strategic Initiatives Case Study: Hospital and Health Care – Part 2
Describes 6 leadership lessons from transformation effort at St. Mary’s Duluth Clinic Heart Center (SMDC), including managing the portfolio of initiatives through balanced score card and strategy maps. Continue reading
Posted in Examples of Strategic Initiatives, Transforming the Organization
Tagged balanced score card, Business, health care, Management, Organization, Organizational culture, Organizational Development, Strategic initiative, Strategic management, Strategic Planning Issues for Strategic Initiatives, Strategy, strategy map
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Leading Strategic Initiatives 