I update my “Drop and Give Me 20” thinking every so often to make sure I’m challenging myself.
If you don’t know what that is, it is an exercise that David C. Baker created to help experts and consultants understand if they were really thinking differently.
Here is my latest thinking.
Tell me if I’ve set you off.
- “Too busy for strategy?” No. You are just afraid to choose.
- “Start with Why” is philosophical navel-gazing for leaders who fear making real decisions.
- “Measure what matters” is often a lie. Most people measure what’s easy and call it discipline.
- “Best practices” are shortcuts to average.
- If your strategy doesn’t force action, it’s just performance art.
- Activity masquerading as progress is the first symptom of decay.
- “Everyone is doing it” is the battle cry of lazy managers, gutless employees, and consultants who have run out of ideas.
- “Prices are too high” is sales code for “I’m too lazy to sell value.”
- Apple’s real decay? Innovating for Wall Street, not users.
- Your strategy is outdated when doing more feels safer than doing differently.
- “Learn from everyone” is terrible advice. Most are wrong.
- Consensus-building is cowardice dressed up as collaboration.
- Plans fail because planning becomes the point.
- The question leaders avoid: What must we stop to be successful?
- A data-driven strategy is like driving while staring at the rearview mirror.
- Strategic planning is bad performance art. Elaborate, irrelevant, and applauded by people who can’t wait to get out of the room.
- Discounts are for dummies! And the leaders who let them do it.
- “X% growth” isn’t a strategy. It is a CYA ritual for leaders who fear hard choices.
- The best test for your strategy? What did it force you to stop doing?
- “What does success look like?” is the only question that matters.