I have a good friend who recently posted this quote from Southwest Airlines Founder, Herb Kelleher, on Facebook: “We Have a Strategic Plan: It’s Called Doing Things.” This is funny. But if you know anything about Herb – it is also tongue in cheek. His brilliant strategy for Southwest has produced record-breaking profits for the airline for decades. So, he surely has … [Read more...] about Strategy vs. GSD
Aim & Impact
Mission Statement Mini-Case. Recently, my friends in the Office of Career Services at the Smith School of Business at Maryland asked me to do some strategy work with them. The first thing we reviewed was their mission. Here is the Mission exercise I take organizations through: *AIM: Specify exactly what “persons, places, or things” the organization aims to … [Read more...] about Aim & Impact
Strategy is “Like” a Theme Song
Can you hum the theme song for Hawaii Five-O? How about Mission Impossible? I bet you can and, if you can whistle, I’ll also bet that you can whistle the tune to The Andy Griffith Show. Can the people in your organization explain your strategy as effortlessly as they can hum the Hawaii Five-O theme song? I suggest that should be your goal. And when they explain it, … [Read more...] about Strategy is “Like” a Theme Song
Giving Purpose to Work
Companies across the globe are spending millions of dollars each year on this term we never really heard much about twenty years ago – “employee engagement.” Why is all this cash being targeted toward employee engagement? Because research done by The Gallup Organization and others has shown that engaged employees end up driving higher levels of profits. Engagement = Revenue … [Read more...] about Giving Purpose to Work
Leverage Your Talents & Soar!
For no commission whatsoever, I am recommending that you buy the book StrengthsFinder 2.0. That is, if you have not already. The book has been in the top ten in The Wall Street Journal list of top business books since it was published in 2007, and I recently saw it listed there in the #1 spot again. Why so popular? People are realizing that discovering and using our … [Read more...] about Leverage Your Talents & Soar!