3 Best Recommendations from our Global Strategy Mavericks Panel

Last Thursday it was a little after 5am in NYC when our panelist, Will Bachman, shared the saying he printed on his T shirt recently: “Everything Important is Uncertain.”  Besides being an unusual hobby to print epigrams on his T shirts, I thought, yes, that is just so true. As the Founder of Umbrex, a network of over 5,000 independent consultants, Will has unique insights on the state of play of global strategy.

Another gem came from the former Dean of the Australian Graduate School Management (arguably the top business school in Australia, where, disclaimer, I'm an alumnus) and also Director Emeritus of McKinsey (where, another disclaimer, Will and I are both alumni).   Rob McLean AM leaned back in his chair in his home office at 7pm in the evening in Sydney, and noted that strategies are often developed with an assumption of certainty, without probabilities or risk assessment attached.  And this no longer makes sense in our volatile business environment.

From his home office near London, Alex M H Smith brought his usual provocative lens to strategy (which his 80,000 raving fans on LinkedIn love).  Alex has a knack of simplifying things, and he said this: “the problem with strategy is that people can’t grasp abstractions”; many don’t care about the strategy.  So we need to “Sex up the strategy to make more progress”.  I would have made that the headline of this email except your spam filter would have choked.

Another key theme which is of personal interest to me is involving people in strategy development. I'll explore this more in future editions of Turbocharge Weekly. Meanwhile, below are the 3 top recommendations from our panel for those working on strategy. 

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3 Top Recommendations from the panelists:

• Rob: Recognize and embrace uncertainty, taking an iterative, problem-solving approach.
• Alex: Be willing to actually change something, even if it's not perfect.
• Will: Focus on effective implementation and driving change, not just strategy development, therefore the growing demand he noted for Transformation Offices to drive implementation.

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After watching this video consider: what are you doing to disrupt your own strategy and change process? Or has it been the same approach every year since you came to your role? (No, really?). Add your own view here. We also had fabulous audience takeaways which I’ll share over the coming weeks.

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Panelist Resources:

Book: “No BullSh*t Strategy” by Alex M H Smith

Book: “The Imperfectionists: Strategic Mindsets for Uncertain Times” by Robert McLean and Charles Conn

Harvard Business Review article: In Uncertain times, Embrace Imperfectionism by Robert McLean and Charles Conn

Will Bachman invites you to connect with him on LinkedIn, where he publishes a free strategy resource weekly, such as The Chief Strategy Officer Handbook.

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PS: Did you notice how all of the panelists' top recommendations are action and change oriented?

Are you interested in influencing change and inspiring action at scale? You will secure more support for implementation if you source your ideas from a broad range of people. However, I see leaders having difficulty knowing how best to engage stakeholders, and exactly how to go from strategy to execution success. 

The 2 day LIVE Strategy Execution for Success Bootcamp is for you if you're leading work to implement strategies, change or projects where there is likely to be resistance. From our previous program, the likelihood to recommend to others was 9.5/10. Participants said that most valuable was:

• “Structure for executing strategy"
• “Demonstration and insight about AI"
• "Consider culture as the first pass on how to do a project"
• "How to get support for the project"
• "All the tools .... as we head into stakeholder engagement...it's been a real eye opener for me."

See the bootcamp outline here.

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Quote of the week

“Strategy is a commodity. Execution is an art.”

The Legendary Peter Drucker

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Keep turbocharging 😊🌱📈

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PS Turbocharge your strategic influence 😊🌱📈

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About Lisa Carlin

Lisa Carlin is a Strategy Execution Specialist.  She works with business leaders to plan and execute their strategies in tough environments.  Her clients love having her expertise and guidance to navigate their workplace culture and use AI to achieve success.

Lisa created The Turbochargers Hub, so leaders can master the art of strategic influence and generate momentum for organizational change.

Lisa is author of the globally acclaimed newsletter, Turbocharge Weekly, read by 8,000 business leaders.

Lisa’s career includes roles at McKinsey and Accenture, then running her own business since 1999.  Over this time she has delivered over 50 implementations with a 96% success rate.