Strategy
1,155 posts
Thank You For Your Work
We can be more grateful customers and build the kind of organisations that create them on purpose.
Your Company Needs A Strong Strategic Narrative
A strong strategic narrative enables us to prioritise the opportunities, plans and behaviours that align our vision and values with our customer’s unmet needs.
Good Stories Drive Great Strategy
Successful brands have a great story long before they have a grand plan.
The Power Of Brand Energy
Brand energy builds brand equity.
Build Your Darlings
Build your darlings for the people you care about serving. Those people who will fall in love with how your work enables them to live the lives they want.
Try Anyway
Texas head teacher, Belinda George, doesn’t have access to more resources than her colleagues. So how does she change her students’ lives for the better? Instead of focusing on the things she and her team can’t control, like educational policy and budgets, she concentrates on the things she can infl
Everyone Speaks
If you search ‘best breakfast in Hobart’ on Trip Advisor, you’ll find a tiny, backstreet cafe in the number one spot. This cafe opens for six hours each day, only seats a dozen people and has a queue of eager diners waiting outside before it opens. It’s the kind of place the people who visit…
Sweeping The Floor
One of my first jobs was in the hospitality industry. We worked long hours, weekends and holidays for average pay. Staff turnover was high. It was hard for managers to motivate people. One of our best managers didn’t bark orders about smiling at customers or showing up on time. She led by example. T
On Culture
Culture is how we act, based on what we know about who we are. It isn’t about fitting in, it’s about understanding where we belong and why. Culture is a reminder that if we believe this, then we do or don’t do, that. It’s about saying this is who we are, then living up to…
Prices Are Stories
Just because someone has the money to pay what you’re charging doesn’t mean they’re your ideal customer.
Don’t Manipulate Me, Move Me
There’s a difference between a good story and a great story. A good story gets our attention. A great story changes us. Successful marketing campaigns and brand stories don’t convince us. They move us. A good leader gets our vote, and sometimes, our respect. A great leader gains our loyalty, and oft
Build A Trust Engine
In the golden age of the advertising businesses of all sizes relied on ads to promote and sell their products. Giant corporations reached us via TV and whole page newspaper ads. Small businesses got our attention by placing small ads in the local newspaper. In the past advertising allowed average pr
The Opportunity Cost Of Pursuing New Opportunities
Time. We can sell it. We can buy it. But we can’t get it back. And yet when it comes to resourcing opportunities, we sometimes believe we can have it all. All we need is to be disciplined about how we spend our time. When we choose to pursue a new project or goal we’re…
What’s At Stake For Your Customer?
We often use customer insights to inform product and service development. Throughout the process, our goal is always to empathise with the customer. But sometimes the language we use stops us from achieving that goal. For example, it’s harder to imagine a particular person with a problem by making a
The Power Of Assumptions
It was standing room only on the 109 tram, as it always is at five o’ clock on a Monday evening. As more passengers boarded the crowded carriage, a man holding a briefcase got up from his seat to let the woman standing in the aisle next to him sit down. She declined. He persisted.…
Proud Work
When I was growing up, work was a means to an end for many of the breadwinners in our neighbourhood. Work meant food in the bellies and clothes on the backs of the people you loved. There is both dignity and joy in providing, especially when you’ve gone hungry and shoeless, as my father often…
What’s On Your ‘Not To Do’ List?
Back in 2007, the New York Times called Apple’s decision not to add a mechanical keyboard to the iPhone their billion dollar gamble). That decision worked out pretty well for Apple. Some of the most successful ideas in the world were born from a conviction about the things the creator, founder or co
Easy Does It
Our expectations about the quality of products have increased exponentially with our ability to perfect the things we produce. When quality improves our tolerance for mistakes plummets. Interestingly, the same isn’t true for human interactions. Even though digital technology has enabled degrees of e
How Much Information Is Enough?
When do we know it’s safe to cross the road? How much information do we need about how far away that truck is and how fast it’s going to decide whether to step off the pavement? How much information does your customer need before deciding she trusts you? As people who sell things or ideas,…
The Assumptions Checklist
Our decisions are rarely based on objective information. And even when we do have ‘good data’, it’s coloured by why, who and how it’s collected. Often our decisions are based on assumptions. We accept something as true, without proof. We make many of these assumptions with a scarcity mindset. We kil
