More items on strategy in the crisis
Amongst the continuing stream of articles on this, some good ones [I've left out some bad or downright dangerous ones] include: Read more
MBAs not learning to avoid crises
In MBA Students Aren’t Learning to Avoid Future Crises from Net Impact, 90% surveyed blame short-term business focus for the crisis … and fewer than a quarter think their courses help them avoid future crises. Still not seen any sign of strategy approaches to help with this, as featured in my recent presentation, which offers some suggestions.
It seems today’s MBA students, if not all those they follow, are pretty smart.
The balanced scorecard
A large Management Development community I track has been discussing how we could have prepared people better for the current troubles, and some have advocated the Balanced Scorecard [BSC]. I have used BSC in strategy teaching for some years, and come across BSCs in many companies. My impression is that, whilst it is a valuable extension to standard financial reporting systems, it has some limitations as a tool for managing strategy – limitations that the down-turn has exposed quite sharply.
Online environment changing competition
Digital Darwinism by Christopher Vollmer in strategy+business plays to my view of strategy as making order-of-magnitude impact, not the percentage incrementalism that constrains much management thinking. Read more
‘Gestures’, not strategy
It’s hard enough dealing with current difficulties in a strategically sound way, but it’s not helped by actions that are pointless or counter-productive – examples below.
Some of these actions just might be unavoidable if the business is in real danger of collapse, but very few are in such a bad state. It seems most are doing these things for purely symbolic reasons – ‘We must be seen to be taking the problem seriously’ – or else to hold up short-term profitability because of perceived pressure from investors or analysts. Read more
Testing assumptions
An interview with Dan Ariely in Sloan Mgmt Review points up the need to test assumptions – critical, of course, and can’t fault Dan’s case. But doing as he asks on serious strategic decisions is not so easy. Read more
The crisis – ethics or competence?
See http://www.strategydynamics.com/strategy-lessons. Background follows … Read more