When Bold Strategy Becomes a Bet You Can’t Afford to Lose
Honda just announced its first net loss since listing on the Tokyo Stock Exchange in 1957. The company cancelled three EV models it had been engineering for years — the Honda 0 SUV, the Honda 0 Saloon, and the Acura RSX — writing off up to ¥2.5 trillion in assets and supplier commitments in a single fiscal year.
That fact alone is worth sitting with. This is not a story about a company that failed to try.
It is a story about the difference between boldness and prudence — and what happens when a business has the first without the second.
Incentive Pay Doesn’t Work
If I offered you more money for results, would you change anything that you are doing now? I have asked this very question to numerous successful CEOs, and invariably the answer is no. I suspect yours is as well.
Strategy? Forget All You Know!
Below are seven pieces of advice I give to business leaders based on the most successful strategy practices I know. Whenever I discuss these in an open forum, there is always pushback from at least a few people, particularly in Japan. Some people are even offended! That’s OK. If I am doing my job correctly, […]
The Secret to Persuasive Strategy
All senior level executives and managers are asked to develop and present a strategy, whether global strategy, regional strategy, or simply strategy for a team or department they oversee. Many managers create long slide presentations with lots of data to justify why their strategy is right. However, the most persuasive managers talk about all the […]
Be Unreasonable
Strategy is about creating the future, not predicting it. You develop strategy by starting with a bold vision of the business in the future and working backwards, not by an understanding of the present business and working forward. The latter merely entices you to compromise your vision. It is only the former that can take […]
Feedback is Not Always a Gift
Unsolicited feedback is meant only for the benefit of the person who gives it and never for the person to whom it is given. I pay it no heed. Neither should you.
Problem with Engagement Surveys
Engagement surveys mask both organizational dysfunction and organizational health. If you are using their results to make decisions, you are at risk of making the wrong ones.
Conservatism isn’t the Problem
I define conservatism as clinging to traditional practices with opposition to change and innovation out of principle. You fight conservatism in an organization through initiating bold action independently and dealing with the consequences, not by insisting others change first. It is the way a person acts that makes him or her conservative, and not necessarily […]
Blindsided by Business Development
It is not uncommon for a CEO not to know exactly how his or her sales and business development people routinely behave in front of real customers and prospects without observing them in action. I recently learned of how one CEO was blindsided when he did just that.
You Have the Right to Make Mistakes
Some people are natural leaders, and I have met a few. For most of us, leadership is something we learn. Making the transition from an operational staff or manager to a leader of people can involve the discarding of false beliefs and misconceptions. Below are five of the most common ones I have encountered when […]
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