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.
Strategic Goals and Lessons from Aviation
Think in terms of pressure. Not mechanics. That way, when you get into aerobatics and find yourself on your back, you won’t be confused.
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.
Practices That Accelerate Leadership Success
Below are my list of the top twenty-one practices that accelerate your success as a leader based on the most successful business leaders I know.
Throw Your Lot in
On the morning of March 11, 2011, I picked out a tie, checked myself in the mirror, and then left the house to go to Tokyo without knowing that I would never again leave that house the same way. It was only hours later that the massive 3/11 earthquake struck Japan and its deadly tsunami […]
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 […]
3 Pillars of Change Traction
If you want traction for change among individuals in your organization, it is only when there are clear standards of performance or behavior, accountability to meet them, and support to help people succeed that a change can take hold. In my experience, a deficit in any one of these three will alter the way any […]
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.
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