The Strategic Executive Show: Recent Episodes

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The ability to modify strategy at the right time can literally save or destroy a business. This week, we hear from our special dead guest, Rod Serling, and his narration of The Strategy Light Zone. We talk about a checklist of five moments when it's critical to reevaluate your strategy, how to look for evolution and customer needs, the distinction between strategy and tactics, and what we can learn from Chipotle on increasing the perceived value of a product or brand. You’ll also learn about the five steps to a solid strategy process.

What You’ll Hear In this Episode:

• Research published in the Harvard Business Review showed that 43% of managers couldn't state their own strategy and 67% of managers believe their organization is bad at developing strategy. Both of these dismal numbers may be in part due to the fact that only 19% of managers say their companies have a distinct process for developing strategy.
• A checklist of five moments when it's critical to reevaluate your strategy.
• Goals are what you are trying to achieve and strategy is how you're going to get there.
• As you accomplish goals and new goals are established, changes in resource allocation are often required to meet them.
• How to look for evolution and customer needs.
• The distinction between strategy and tactics was articulated even as far back as 2500 years ago by Chinese general and philosopher Sun Tzu.
• Expertise in any domain is the result of deliberate practice, not natural born talent.
• How the contextual radar tool helps us determine when to change strategy.

Quotes/Tweetables:

“Goals are what you are trying to achieve and strategy is how you're going to get there.”

“ The end game of business strategy is to serve customers' needs in a more profitable way than the competition.”

“When determining whether or not to change strategy, it falls under your own roof.”

Connect with Us!

Strategic Thinking Institute

Rich Horwath on LinkedIn

Rich Horwath’s YouTube Channel

Rich Horwath on Instagram

StrategyMan vs. the Anti-Strategy Squad: Using Strategic Thinking to Defeat Bad Strategy and Save Your Plan

Deep Dive by Rich Horwath

Elevate: The Three Disciplines of Advanced Strategic Thinking by Rich Horwath

Strategy for You: Building a Bridge to the Life You Want

Mentioned :

Chipotle

Sun Tzu

Rod Serling

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This episode, it’s all about decision-making and delegation, with an appearance from the dastardly Decision Demon and special dead guest Napoleon Bonaparte, one of the greatest strategic minds in history on how he makes decisions. You’ll learn tips and techniques to clarify decision rights, identify the causes of faulty decision-making, and maximize your time through better delegation.

What You’ll Hear In this Episode:

• Resource allocation requires us to make trade-offs.
• The nine causes of faulty decision making - which one of these does your team fall into most frequently?
• Decisions, or the lack thereof, can make or break our strategy.
• How can the halo effect and groupthink influence our future decisions?
• By implementing frameworks and processes to establish decision rights, we can put ourselves in much stronger strategic and financial positions.
• One of the reasons it's crucial to have strategies in written form is that they provide a filter for what you should and shouldn't do.
• Five steps for your team to eliminate the confusion around who owns which decisions.
• How leaders can fully engage their teams in the execution of strategies.
• The four factors to simplify and ensure effective delegation.

Quotes/Tweetables:

• “Decisions, or the lack thereof, can make or break our strategy.”
• “By implementing frameworks and processes to establish decision rights, we can put ourselves in much stronger strategic and financial positions.”
• “Companies fail because they are trying to do too many things, serve too many different types of customers, rather than focusing their resources in the areas where they can generate the greatest value and in turn, the highest profit margins.”
• “Research in the social sciences has shown that commitment increases by 34% when we simply share with people the “why” behind what we’re doing.”
• “Gaining full engagement means involving your people in conversations in determining what the goals and objectives look like, and the strategies and tactics and achieving them.”
• “Decisions of a revolving-door nature are ones that can be readily entered into again and reversed if need be. One-way door decisions are those that cannot be re-entered and therefore, require more expertise.”

Connect with Us!

Strategic Thinking Institute

Rich Horwath on LinkedIn

Rich Horwath’s YouTube Channel

Rich Horwath on Instagram

StrategyMan vs. the Anti-Strategy Squad: Using Strategic Thinking to Defeat Bad Strategy and Save Your Plan

Deep Dive by Rich Horwath

Elevate: The Three Disciplines of Advanced Strategic Thinking by Rich Horwath

Strategy for You: Building a Bridge to the Life You Want

Mentioned :

Jeff Bezos

Napoleon Bonaparte

Keywords: strategic thinking, strategy, strategic thinking, strategic planning, strategic, tactics, goal, goals, objective, objectives, plan, planning, business strategy, business acumen, executive coaching, executive coach, leadership development, leadership, rich horwath, effective meetings, CEO strategy, CEO coach, productive meetings, jeff bezos, google, apple, innovation, amazon, napoleon bonaparte

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When is the last time that you and your team truly created new value for your customers? Today, I share three ways that you can take the concept of innovation and apply an innovative thinking mindset to your daily activities. I welcome dead guest, Leonardo da Vinci, to talk about the importance of observation while innovating, and using a technique called domain jumping to turbo charge your business and escape the mental ruts. You will also learn how to apply the Value Mining Matrix to your business to create new value by exploring customers and their needs in unique ways. What You’ll Hear In this Episode: + When we hear the term innovation, we tend to think of a cool new product or technology that's going to change the world. But that isn't really what most innovation entails. A recent three-year study on innovation found that only 13% of consumer product companies introduced a breakthrough innovation. + Most innovation tends to come in incremental doses, even for companies known for innovation. + When was the last time you and your team truly created new value for your customers? + What is domain jumping, and how did a company called Sharklet jump domains?

• Technique #1: Solve their challenge.

• Technique #2: Jump the domain.

• Technique #3: Use an Innovative Mindset to deviate from the norm.

• The Norm Deviation Matrix provides a methodical way to separate yourself from the pack and innovate to generate better results.

Quotes/Tweetables:

• “To not innovate is to die.” - Tim Cook, CEO, Apple
• “In order to innovate, it's important to not only cross domains at a higher vantage point but to also look at things from a granular level to observe the nuances.” - Rich
• “Learning is the only thing the mind never gets exhausted from, never fears and never regrets.” - dead guest Leonardo da Vinci
• “When we realize that excellence is described as a deviation from the norm, we know that it's required to innovate.” - Rich
• “Iron rusts from disuse; water loses its purity from stagnation... even so does inaction sap the vigor of the mind.” dead guest Leonardo da Vinci
• “If we're doing the same normal things in the same normal ways as everyone else in our space, then mediocrity is to be expected.” - Rich

Connect with Us!

Strategic Thinking Institute

Rich Horwath on LinkedIn

Rich Horwath’s YouTube Channel

StrategyMan vs. the Anti-Strategy Squad: Using Strategic Thinking to Defeat Bad Strategy and Save Your Plan

Deep Dive by Rich Horwath

Elevate: The Three Disciplines of Advanced Strategic Thinking by Rich Horwath

Mentioned :

Jeff Bezos

James Dyson

Steve Jobs

Gym Guyz

Sharklet

Value Mining Matrix

Norm Deviation Matrix

Keywords: strategic thinking, strategy, strategic planning, strategic, tactics, goal, goals, objective, objectives, plan, planning, business strategy, business acumen, executive coaching, executive coach, leadership development, leadership, rich horwath, effective meetings, CEO strategy, CEO coach, productive meetings, leonardo da vinci, apple, sharklet, innovation, amazon

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A survey of two thousand executives by McKinsey and Company showed that only 19% of companies have a definite and distinct process for developing strategy. That means for the majority of organizations, strategy development is a random and crisis driven event…if it even happens at all. Today, I’m excited to share with you a proven process for developing strategy. First, I welcome one of the greatest strategic minds in history, Carl von Clausewitz, to share his planning approach, and you’ll also learn how to distill your entire strategic plan into 1-2 pages. Then, I welcome the almost five-time Grammy award winning hip hop artist, Stra-Da-Gee, to perform his hit song on strategic planning entitled, ‘Strat Plan’. We will also talk about the importance of leading boldly through confident strategic direction, and you’ll be introduced to the Strategy Scaffold tool to bring together your purpose, business model, and plan. What You’ll Hear In this Episode:

• Strategic thinking is the generation of insights that lead to advantage, while strategic planning is the channeling of those insights into a directional guide to achieve your goals and objectives.
• GOST is an acronym for goals, objectives, strategies, and tactics. You’ll learn how it’s spookily accurate when it comes to setting strategy.
• Good leaders continually reinforce the key elements of their plan, and filter out the extraneous noise that could get in the way of their team’s execution.
• When you try to do a little bit for everyone, you lose strength and focus.
• How does the ability to act boldly show up in history’s champions?
• What are the five primary phases of strategy development?
• You’ll gain access to the Strategy Scaffold tool.
• Stra-Da-Gee, performing his hit rap song on the keys to strategic planning. Lyrics Stra-Da-Gee (1).pdf

Quotes/Tweetables:

• “Do you have a strategic plan? If your plan could talk, what would it say?”
• “Good leaders continually reinforce the key elements of their plan, and filter out the extraneous noise that could get in the way of their team’s execution.”
• “You will always have a choice between the most courageous and most cautious decision.”
• “Intelligence without audacity is not enough. You must have the guts to explode the game to upend your opponent’s thinking, and in doing so, unnerve them.” - Garry Kasparov

Connect with Us!

Strategic Thinking Institute

Rich Horwath on LinkedIn

Rich Horwath’s YouTube Channel

StrategyMan vs. the Anti-Strategy Squad: Using Strategic Thinking to Defeat Bad Strategy and Save Your PlanDeep Dive by Rich Horwath

Elevate: The Three Disciplines of Advanced Strategic Thinking by Rich Horwath

Mentioned :

Carl von Clausewitz

McKinsey

Garry Kasparaov

Keywords: strategic thinking, strategy, strategic planning, strategic, tactics, goal, goals, objective, objectives, plan, planning, business strategy, business acumen, executive coaching, executive coach, leadership development,, leadership, rich horwath, effective meetings, CEO strategy, CEO coach, productive meetings, carl von clausewitz, mckinsey, strategy scaffold

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It’s a jam-packed episode as we dive into a proven framework to create a strategic team, and help your team set clear and compelling strategic direction. First, I discuss ways to maximize your strategic leadership potential by reviewing the 3A Strategic Thinking framework. Here you’ll learn to apply several new strategic tools to your business to create more insights, make strategic trade-offs and better align your priorities with your time. I’ll then chat with our dead guest, Dr. Igor Ansoff, considered by many to be the father of strategic management. Finally, I share Dr. Seuss’s take on strategy, and dive deeper into how structure follows strategy and why failing fast may not be as great as it seems. What You’ll Hear In This Episode: * Why you should stop people from throwing “strategic” in front of other words to make them sound important * What does “being strategic” really mean? * How to stop the villain Jargon Goblin from confusing your team on the common business planning terms * Today’s dead guest, Dr. Igor Ansoff, known as “The Father of Strategic Management” on how to become more strategic * Research shows that one-third to one-half of new chief executives fail within their first 18 months. * If you follow the practice of failing fast and often, you may soon be an unemployed CEO! * The #1 cause of business failure is…bad strategy. * The 3A Strategic Thinking Framework: acumen, allocation, and action. * Nearly half of the activities that managers work on are actually tasks that could be delegated to others. * The importance of creating an Insight Network and harnessing your people’s insights on a regular basis * Completing a Decision Inventory to clarify decision rights * A whopping 71% of executives say their meetings are unproductive and inefficient. * Developing a Time Tracker to better align your priorities and time * Dr. Seuss’s take on being strategic?

Quotes/Tweetables:

• “Strategic: possessing insight that leads to advantage.”
• “At the heart of strategy are two components: insight and advantage.”
• “Taking the time to think strategically and plan appropriately will lead you to succeed fast and often.”
• “Strategic decisions are not self-regenerative.”
• “How often do we get caught up in the seemingly endless cycle of fire drills that distracts us from proactively thinking through and focusing on creating and executing our strategies?”
• “Being a strategic leader is not a nice to have these days, it's a must-have.”
• “If your team’s strategic plan is nothing more than a rehash of last year’s tactics smothered in a mountain of customer data and spread out across 75 PowerPoint slides, then grab yourself a frosty, cold can of Insight Hard Seltzer…And please, strategize responsibly.”

Connect with Us!

Strategic Thinking Institute

Rich Horwath on LinkedIn

Rich Horwath’s YouTube Channel

StrategyMan vs. the Anti-Strategy Squad: Using Strategic Thinking to Defeat Bad Strategy and Save Your PlanDeep Dive by Rich Horwath

Elevate: The Three Disciplines of Advanced Strategic Thinking by Rich Horwath

Mentioned :

Dr. Igor Ansoff

Jack Dorsey

Tom Gentile

Tim Cook

Harvard Business Review - One-half of Chief Executives Fail Within 18 Months

Harvard Business School Professor Boris Groysberg

The Visible Hand

Keywords: strategic thinking, strategy, strategic planning, strategic, tactics, goal, goals, objective, objectives, plan, planning, business strategy, business acumen, executive coaching, executive coach, leadership development,, leadership, rich horwath, effective meetings, CEO strategy, CEO coach, jack dorsey, igor ansoff, productive meetings

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Welcome to the Strategic Executive Show. I’m your host Rich Horwath, founder of The Strategic Thinking Institute. In this series, I’ll share tools, tips and techniques to enhance your strategic thinking and planning capabilities to set direction, create advantage and achieve your goals. This week, it’s all about digging into what strategy is at its core, and how to understand and reconnect with its true purpose and meaning.

First, I’ll chat with a special guest–Chinese General, philosopher, and author of, The Art of War, Sun Tzu–and by the way, he’s dead–to talk about the core differences between strategy and tactics, how effective strategy can create a roadmap to your goals, and the importance of tuning up your strategic plan to adapt to your evolving environment. Then, we dive into the most common mistake regarding strategy, and why mistaking operational effectiveness for strategy can prevent you from separating yourself from the pack. Our first episode wouldn’t be complete without a quick visit from Strategy Jack, to help us break down some tools and techniques to craft an impactful roadmap. Let’s strategize!

What You’ll Hear In This Episode:

• How strategy has become convoluted and confused with other terms in business.
• The common traps to avoid when developing your strategy.
• The difference between strategy and tactics.
• Why strategy without insight compromises your competitive advantage.
• The three elements within an impactful strategy: Resource allocation, unique system of activity, and primary components.
• What research says 93% of the top financially performing companies have in common.
• What two questions good planning should aim to answer.
• The G.O.S.T. Framework: Goals, objectives, strategies, and tactics.

Quotes/Tweetables:

• “Strategy without tactics is the slowest route to victory. Tactics without strategy is the noise before defeat” [3:50] -Sun Tzu
• “Without strategy, it becomes a game of tactical roulette, where you're just throwing things up on the wall to see what sticks. With strategy in place, it provides a path to your destination.” [4:00] -Rich
• “Preparation is seldom exciting, but it is the foundation of success.” [5:02] -Rich
• “Simply put, strategy is how you plan to achieve a goal.” [8:30] -Rich
• “Show me how your people are spending their time, talent and budget every day, and you'll see your true strategy.” [9:15] -Rich
• “Good leaders don't leave strategy to chance” [9:30] -Rich
• “It's not until you get off the beaten path that the beating can begin” [10:38] -Rich
• “​​It's very difficult to fix something that's been done badly, you'd better do your thinking and planning up front when you have the time.” [17:27] -David Mamet

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Strategic Thinking Institute

Rich Horwath: LinkedIn | Twitter | Instagram | Books

Mentioned :

The Art of War

StrategyMan vs. the Anti-Strategy Squad: Using Strategic Thinking to Defeat Bad Strategy and Save Your Plan

Keywords: strategic thinking, strategy, strategic planning, strategic, tactics, goal, goals, objective, objectives, plan, planning, business, sun tzu, create, develop, effectiveness, leadership, rich horwath,

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Are you strategic? New York Times bestselling author on strategy Rich Horwath shares tools, tips, and techniques to enhance your strategic thinking and planning skills to set direction, create advantage, and achieve your goals. Sometimes he has live guests, and sometimes he has dead guests…tune in to find out who he’s talking about strategy with this episode.