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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: Strategic planning
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
3 Comments
The “20%-of-Your-Time” Rule-of-Thumb
Gaining the commitment of the right resources is arguably the greatest success factor for strategic initiatives. I inevitably hear people on the strategic initiative team verbalize this pattern: “This performance gap is huge and needs to be addressed. I am happy to be part of the solution. But where am I going to find time to participate?” When resourcing of a strategic initiative, follow this rule, “Each key player in the strategic initiative must devote at least 20% of their time to the initiative.” The article also includes a list of five challenges for resourcing a strategic initiative: Ambiguity about purpose, Novelty, Run-the-business work consumes time, Corporate-level budgeting & talent management processes don’t plan with enough granularity, Burn-out and balance of personal life with work life. Continue reading
That’s the Fact, Jack: Data Drive Strategic Initiatives
A strategic initiative is more likely to be successful if there is an accessible record of facts, data, and patterns. Domino’s Pizza and Google are discussed as two good examples where data support a valid, useful diagnosis and narrative for the strategic initiative. By contrast, a failed initiative at Cooper Tire failed to convince middle managers. Because stakeholders often don’t agree on strategic direction, the leader can use tools like the ladder of inference and White Hat thinking to get facts and connect them to strategy. Continue reading
Posted in Competencies of Strategic Initiative Leaders, Strategic Planning Issues for Strategic Initiatives, Strategy Coaching and Facilitation, Success Principles for Strategic Initiatives, Useful Practices & Management Tools
Tagged analytics, data, Strategic initiative, Strategic planning
4 Comments
How to Identify Strategic Assumptions
Strategic assumptions are an important tool for establishing and controlling a strategic initiative. The assumptions fall into four categories: marketing, organizational, technological, and resources. An examples of a team that failed to examine strategic assumptions is discussed. Continue reading
Advice for Strategic Initiative Charters
Strategic initiative charters are different than typical project and program charters that are expecting a pre-determined result. Greg Githens explains the functions of strategic initiative charter. He provides practical advise such as the “two page” rule and outlines 12 elements that should be found in a strategic initiative charter. Continue reading
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
Strategy-as-Story: The ABCDE Model
This tip for strategy and story telling (third in a series) describes the ABCDE model (assess, baseline, components, delivery, evaluation). It explains that strategic initiatives are chartered in the C to D steps. It also provides four useful questions that help gain strategic perspective: Where are we at? Where do we want to be? How will we get there? How will we evaluate ourselves? It also provides an example story that illustrates the principles. Continue reading
Posted in How to Improve Your Story Telling Chops, Strategic Planning Issues for Strategic Initiatives
Tagged ABCDE model of strategy, balanced score card, benefits, leading strategic initiatives, story telling, strategic initiatives, Strategic management, Strategic planning, strategy execution, strategy formulation, vision
2 Comments
How to Be Strong Minded (3 Capabilities and 5 Tips for Strategic Thinking)
Strong minds produce strong ideas. Strong minds do not fail. Strong minded thinkers have three competencies: 1) they are good a probing and sensing, 2) they imagine the logical future consequences of decisions and actions, and 3) they look for opportunities to apply ingenuity. The article provides practical questions that will help the reader develop these competencies. The article also provides five tips for robustness: avoid mistakes, develop emotional resiliency, reflect, and generate alternative solutions. Continue reading
Why Your Organization Will Perform Better With Fewer Strategic Initiatives: Six Bits Evidence
Companies that have fewer strategic initiatives more likely to be at the top of their industry. Why? The discipline and focus of strategic choice! Too many projects and initiatives tend to cause fire fighting, distraction, frustration, etc. This article will provide you with examples and good talking points for maintaining focus on the “vital few” strategies rather than the trivial many. Continue reading
Posted in Program & Portfolio Management, Strategic Planning Issues for Strategic Initiatives, Success Principles for Strategic Initiatives
Tagged case study, evidence, prioritizing initiatives, Strategic initiative, strategic initiatives, Strategic planning, strategy execution, Texas Instruments
6 Comments
Leading Strategic Initiatives 