How useful is your strategy statement?
It is the beginning of an uncertain new year, following two chaotic ones. Many will have found that performance has been stunted, not just by the chaos of Covid, but by the lack of a capacity to co-ordinate and align activities across competing needs. Often...
The unfortunate unintended consequence of Google.
Google has been a revelation, all the answers you need at your fingertips, or so it would seem. What is the consequence of this instant question gratification? Do we ask better questions, or just more superficial ones? Does the volume of questions we ask, to...
Top speed is irrelevant
While contracting as GM of a Federal body some time ago, I used to travel from Canberra to Sydney's western suburbs on a regular basis. I had the choice of driving which took a predictable three hours door to door, or catch a cab to Canberra airport, wait,...
The digital unicorns’ growth secret
Question: What has enabled the geometric growth rates of Facebook, Google, Amazon, Atlassian, and other digital unicorns? Answer: Wide and deep feedback from the market enabling them to aggressively focus resources on areas that deliver the best returns....
2022: here we go!!
There are more predictions posts than you can poke a stick at written at this time of the year. This is not one of them to add to the pile. The following is a review of the forces and trends I see at work that will impact on all businesses in Australia in the...
A final New Years eve quickie
I had not intended to publish another post until 2021 was behind us after the review a few days ago. However, the decision of national cabinet yesterday, coupled with today's Covid numbers changed my mind. In the back of my memory is an early Monty Python...
The 10 most read StrategyAudit posts of 2021
At the end of the year, it seems sensible to have a look at the posts that generated the most traffic. Surprisingly, none are posts that have gone up in this most challenging year, not an outcome I anticipated. This demonstrates the long-term value of a blog of...
2021: What a shitty year!
The PM has made an absolute mess of it, bouncing from one headline to another like a clown on speed. You must give credit for the energy, pity it is expended on trivialities rather than tackling the big questions. The government has changed tack in the face of...
Transaction costs: The friction that comes from scaling.
Some great minds have worked in increasing the performance of management. Einstein is one of them, although may not have known it when he said: 'Everything should be made as simple as possible, and no simpler'. Along the same lines, 20 years later Einstein's...
How to win almost any argument
What happens if you are on the receiving end of negative feedback during a debate, or an 'executive heckle' during a presentation? How do you respond? Our natural reaction is to push back, to defend your position, which creates friction and 'heat'. That is what...