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“Start with why.”  It’s great advice, but you need to do more than start with why.  You need to put your why into action.  And that’s where lots of business leaders get tripped up. My latest LinkedIn Brand+Cuture Series post, Start With Why But Don’t Stop There, explores how to close the gap between vision […]

brand-as-business bit:   Business is defined by tensions:  manage costs vs. maximize sales, acquire new customers vs. serve existing ones, grow organically vs. acquire — and pursue innovation vs. optimize core execution.   Of course, none of these are really either/or’s — they are both/and’s.  But achieving the right balance between innovation and core execution can be […]

My content this past month has sparked quite a few reactions and conversations.  Here’s a roundup of the most popular pieces: how to build a breakthrough brand – The launch of a FREE 10-session series on the steps in the brand development process – each video is less than 4 minutes and comes with a downloadable […]

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brand-as-business bit:  In response to a recent post on strategy, Dr. Marco de Haas CEO of S-ray Diagnostics and professor at Erasmus University Rotterdam shared with me a tool that he has developed to facilitate organizational alignment around strategy.  The diagnostic tool, S-ray Alignment Scan, visually maps and objectively quantifies which organizational units are aligned and […]

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My recent piece, “Strategy IS Execution,” prompted quite a few reactions.  In it, I wrote about how it no longer makes sense to separate the value of strategy from the value of execution because execution is actually becoming strategy.  I’ve learned a lot from the ensuing comments and conversations.  […]

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(This is the second in a two-part blog exchange between Shawn Parr and me.  Shawn is one of my favorite people and partners in crime, er, I mean client engagements.   A recent client experience led us to debate where strategy and execution connect and so I kicked things off with “Execution IS Strategy” on Shawn’s […]

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I’m working on two big and juicy brand repositioning projects.  While both involve quite significant departures from the companies’ current strategies and it’s still pretty early on in the projects, it’s likely one is going to be successful and the other, not, or at least less so. I thought the reason for the difference between […]

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Last week I had the privilege of participating in a CEO group session led by Dan Barnett.  (Dan Barnett has headed companies for some of the world’s leading corporations […]