| When is theory powerful? | |
| Whether they like it or not, decision makers use theory all the time, even if it is only their own private beliefs about why things happen and the likely impact of their decisions. Theory does not need to be complex – it is simply an explanation for what causes what, and how – without which there can be little confidence in the likely effect of any strategy we develop or decisions we might take. Continue reading » | |
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This is the third post in the fortnightly series of Strategy Dynamics Briefings.
Continue reading »
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This is the second post in the fortnightly series of Strategy Dynamics Briefings.
Despite a wide range of financial measures being available the interests of investors has led to the choice of one specific measure. What is it? (If you would like to receive the series from the beginning in your email inbox, please register on www.strategydynamics.com and subscribe to Briefings in “MyAccount”) Continue reading » |
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This is the first post in the series of Strategy Dynamics Briefings. Join me, as I introduce and explain ideas behind Strategy Dynamics in these fortnightly blog posts. (If you would like to receive this series from the beginning in your email inbox, please register on www.strategydynamics.com and subscribe to Briefings in “MyAccount”)
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Apr 222010
Equity Analysts: Still Too Bullish in McKQ makes depressing, if unsurprising reading. Analysts continue a decades-long tendency to forecast nearly double the profit growth that actually follows, and go most wrong when they most need to get it right – when boom times falter. CEOs get beaten over the head with these forecasts, and mess up business in their efforts to hit stupid targets, so this is of more than academic interest. It is interesting to note, then, Continue reading »
Dec 312009
Hagen Lindstaedt just alerted me to what looks a smart way of making game theory usable, with a neat link to scenario-based thinking. Probably quite challenging to do, but looks powerful – thanks Hagen. Looking forward to seeing more on how it works.
Nov 122009
Harvard Business Review may be seen as the gold-standard for leading edge management thinking. But I am increasingly impressed by the quality of other journals. McKinsey Quarterly, of course, has long produced solid content based on work with major clients, or else on serious research from their Global Institute, and other big consulting firms do some of the same. Now, seems to me, Sloan Management Review is also putting out important, well-informed articles reflecting rigorous work, and strategy+business from Booz & Co does the same.
Meanwhile, HBR offers more and more articles featuring glib slogans or ‘X ways to do Y’ and other styles of thin journalism. Some are downright dangerous! There are still some great exceptions of course, but I wonder if their crown is slipping.
Anyone got other favourite sources?
Great video with Adam Werbach, author of Strategy for Sustainability: A Business Manifesto, shares an adaptation from his book and talks with the McKinsey Quarterly about trading in green fashion for more enduring business solutions. Practial and commercial.
I hope senior management do not get persuaded to divert their attention to studying ‘complexity’ in the hope of understanding recent economic turmoil. “‘Power curves’: What natural and economic disasters have in common” argues that “parallels between financial crises and natural disasters–such as earthquakes or forest fires–suggest that the economy, just like complex natural systems, is inherently unstable and prone to occasional huge failures that are very hard or impossible to foresee. Proponents of this school of thinking are bringing new ideas grounded in complexity theory to economic forecasting, strategic planning, and risk management.” This contributes little to the quest for skilled strategic management. Continue reading »
Jun 102009
Just came across a great piece, but curiously embedded in a McKinsey Quarterly article that seems to be about something else entirely – an update of how to decide what businesses should be in a corporate portfolio. The little gem is on the evolution of strategic management - which describes how strategy has evolved from a basically financial approach, through forecasting and then externally driven strategizing, to its ultimate, described as follows:
“When this investment [in strategic planning] is successful, the result is strategic management: the melding of strategic planning and everyday management into a single, seamless process. In this phase, it is not that planning techniques have become more sophisticated than they were in phase three but that they have become inseparable from the process of management itself. No longer is planning a yearly, or even quarterly, activity. Instead, it is woven into the fabric of operational decision making.” It goes on to point out that virtually no companies have reached this point, except perhaps some in the electronics sector, where very fast changes across multiple products and highly segmented markets make it imperative.
… but surely this should be our aspiration for all organizations? though as I have noted before, we are not likely to get to this point with strategy tools that are simply incapable of ever delivering this result.
