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• SmartDraw.com’s Strategic Planning Process from Start to Finish
  In my last post I introduced “Visual Strategic Planning,” a simple methodology that improves any strategic planning process by making it easier : To organize work among the members of the strategic planning committee or team by using mind
• Strategic Planning for the Strategically Impaired
  As a former head of strategic planning and management services at a $500M company, I can say without equivocation that the topic of strategic planning is an absolute quagmire of competing and conflicting models, concepts, and practices. For many people
• Visual Strategic Planning from Start to Finish
  Let’s face it – although most companies have probably heard of strategic planning and have done some on occasion, most do not have a well-defined process for doing it. And that’s understandable – strategic planning is a fuzzy and
• Introduction to Visual Strategic Planning
  I spent most of the space in my most recent post, “ Four Reasons Why Productive People Hate Strategic Planning ,” decrying the barbarically tedious nature of most strategic planning processes. To recap, most strategic planning processes: Take
• Four Reasons Why Productive People Hate Strategic Planning
  I have a confession to make – I consider myself to be extremely productive employee; even on days when I’m off my game I probably accomplish twice as much as the average person (and twice as modest about it.) Like most diligent people, most
• A Strategic Planning Tool: The Goals Grid
  One of the major products of any strategic planning process is a set of strategic goals and objectives. In this regard, the Goals Grid (see Figure 1) is a useful and flexible strategic planning tool. Below are listed some of its many uses: prompt and
• How Visual Aids Facilitate Strategic Thinking & Planning
  The title of this post suggests that visual aids can facilitate strategic thinking and planning and indeed they can. They can help focus thinking and discussion; they can clarify complex relationships; and they can illustrate abstract concepts. As the
• Fit & Fitness: The Yin & Yang of Organizational Sustainability
  Figure 1 - Sustainability Nowadays there is a great deal of talk about “sustainability” as it relates to organizations. Yet, for all the talk, it sometimes seems like wishful (or wistful) thinking. I think it’s an eminently practical
• Three Kinds of Business Strategy
  Figure 1 - Three Kinds of Strategy There are at least three basic kinds of strategy with which people must concern themselves in the world of business: (1) just plain strategy or strategy in general, (2) corporate strategy, and (3) competitive strategy
• Lessons in Bad Management: Felix the Flying Frog
  I first heard the parable of Felix the Flying Frog in the early 1970s. It appears in many places nowadays and its author is unknown. I think its staying power owes to the many points it illustrates – some subtly and some not so subtly. It has great
• Getting from Losses to Commitments: The Change Acceptance Cycle
  The purpose of this post is to review The Change Acceptance Cycle shown in Figure 1 and to extract from it some pointers for managers caught up in organizational change. The Change Acceptance Cycle Let’s start in the upper left, with a common form
• Corporate Culture: A Case of Monkey See, Monkey Do?
  Did you ever wonder how your company’s culture – that set of beliefs, traditions, and behavioral norms that determines “the way things work around here” – came to be? Or why, when you try to change it, it seems so resistant
• From Start Up to Shut Down: The Rise and Fall of an Organization
  Most people agree that organizations have a life cycle; that, like people, they pass through some identifiable stages. Some see seven stages, some see as many as eleven. All agree that movement from one stage to the next must be managed. Failure to do
• Strategy IS Execution: Don’t Shoot Yourself in the Foot
  Things don’t always turn out as planned. This is especially true of strategy. The strategy you contemplate or envision and that same strategy as it plays out are often two very different matters. Strategy as realized is the result of efforts to
• Five Ways Leaders Screw up their Change Initiatives
  The reported failure rate of change initiatives is about 70 percent. It ranks right up there with reengineering efforts (and for many of the same reasons). The success rate of change initiatives could be greatly improved if those who launch and lead them
• What do Shooting Down Enemy Airplanes and Solving Business Problems Have in Common? - Part 2
  Introduction As I indicated in Part 1 of this post , there are similarities between solving the fire control problem and solving business problems. The basic problem and the basic process are almost exactly the same: hitting a moving target and the absolute
• What do Shooting Down Enemy Airplanes and Solving Business Problems Have in Common? - Part 1
  Introduction Surprisingly, the answer to the question in the title of this post is “A Lot!” Shooting down an enemy airplane is done by a weapons system that solves what is known as “the fire control problem.” What I learned about
• The Urgent Should Displace the Important
  Layoffs and job losses in recent times have resulted in a significant – some might say punishing – increase in the workload facing many working people. Millions of people have lost their jobs but their work didn’t leave with them. People
• Understanding Your Company's Performance Architecture
  Responsible Management Practice We all want to be able to say with some degree of confidence that a given action will produce a given result. Conversely, we also want to be able to say that a given result requires a certain action. Our success depends
• How to Make Decisions like Benjamin Franklin
  Introduction Benjamin Franklin described his well-known decision-making process in a letter to Joseph Priestley who had asked Franklin’s advice about a vexing decision. Essentially, Franklin’s process is a matter of listing the Pros and Cons
• Does Process Stifle Talent?
  I came across this internal Netflix presentation on freedom & responsibility as a business culture on TechCrunch this morning and it struck a cord with me and many others. The most interesting part for me (and presumably the rest of my organization
• How Org Charts Will Help All Departments in Your Business
  Departing employees can have a tremendous impact on an organization – especially if the employee is one of the “Top Dogs.”
• Is Your Organization Built to Last?
  Built to Last contains all of their research, analysis, and conclusions and I wanted to discuss some of the points that are highly relevant to what we’ve discussed at Working Smarter.
• Visuals versus Text: What Makes You Say “A-Ha” Faster?
  In a previous entry, “Why Communicate Visually,” it was asserted and backed by scientific study that communicating visually is a far easier and quicker way to comprehend both simple and complex information for 8 out of 10 people. Skeptical
• Four Tips for “Beefing Up” Your Problem-Solving Tool Box – Part Four
  This is part four of a four-part guest post contributed by Fred Nickols , Managing Partner of Distance Consulting LLC. All four parts focus on improving your problem solving efforts. Tip #4: Draw pictures of the structure of the problem A picture or model