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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: teams
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
Fast and Effective Decisions Drive the Strategic Initiative
Fast and effective decisions drive the strategic initiative program. Greg Githens provides useful ideas for making faster and better decisions. Continue reading
Posted in Strategy Coaching and Facilitation, Success Principles for Strategic Initiatives, Useful Practices & Management Tools
Tagged agenda, Decision making, Decision tree, fast decisions, management tools, meetings, Problem Solving, program management, Strategic initiative, strategic mindset, strategic thinking, strategy execution, teams
5 Comments
Does Your Strategic Initiative Need a Fresh Perspective?
Greg explains how to overcome headwinds in a strategic initiative with 4 perspectives: storytelling, learning, integration, and decisions. He illustrates how each role is applied through a case study.
Posted in Competencies of Strategic Initiative Leaders, Examples of Strategic Initiatives, Strategy Coaching and Facilitation, Useful Practices & Management Tools
Tagged ambiguity, chief decision architect, chief integration officer, Chief learning officer, Chief storyteller, Competencies of Strategic Initiative Leaders, Decision making, Greg Githens, intuition, Issue management, Learning, management tools, partitioning problems, program management, questions, Strategic initiative, Strategic management, strategic thinking, strategy execution, teams, transformation, vision
1 Comment
L.I.D.S – The Four Leadership Roles of the Strategic Program Manager
Stories, Learning, Integration, and Decisions are keys to good leadership of strategic initiatives. Greg Githens explains that the leader is the Chief of each. Individually and collectively these program manager roles provide a framework for strategy execution.
Posted in Competencies of Strategic Initiative Leaders, Interpreting Strategy Documents, Useful Practices & Management Tools
Tagged ambiguity, Competencies of Strategic Initiative Leaders, fast decisions, Greg Githens, innovation, program management, Strategic initiative, strategic thinking, strategy execution, teams
13 Comments
How to Energize Strategic Initiatives with Outcomes
Performance outcomes are time-based trends that serve to crystallize the strategic vision. This “how to execute strategy article” explains that the strategic initiative team builds a cause-effect model. Applying its model, the team develops the strategies that lead to the desired improvement in performance outcomes. Helpful tips are provided. Continue reading
Posted in Interpreting Strategy Documents, Strategy Coaching and Facilitation, Success Principles for Strategic Initiatives, Useful Practices & Management Tools
Tagged ambiguity, change management, collaboration, Competencies of Strategic Initiative Leaders, Decision making, Greg Githens, innovation, Management, management tools, program management, questions, revpar, stkeholder expectations, Strategic initiative, Strategic management, strategy execution, success metric, teams, transformation, vision
12 Comments
Interpreting Strategy Documents: More Insights and a Valuable Tip!
The article provides techniques and questions for clarifying the internal and the external strategic context during a strategy implementation readiness session. This helps you align formulation with implementation. Continue reading
Posted in Useful Practices & Management Tools
Tagged ambiguity, Business, collaboration, Consulting, Document, Management, Peter Drucker, program management, Silicon Valley, Strategic management, Strategic Planning Issues for Strategic Initiatives, strategy execution, strategy formulation, teams
4 Comments
How to Use the “What About” Technique
Explains practices for managing issues and overcoming ambiguity: “what about,” nominal group technique, RADIO classification scheme. Continue reading
Strategic Initiatives Case Study: Hospital and Health Care – Part 1
Describes 5 leadership lessons for strategic initiatives, arising from Duke Children’s Hospital 10 years of positive results from performance improvement initiatives. Continue reading
Leading Strategic Initiatives 