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People either survive in the jungle or exist in the zoo
Today’s Strategic Alignment Journal post in two sentences: Businesses often ask for initiative, accountability and adaptability without examining whether their systems actually allow those behaviours to develop. Before deciding that people need to change, it may be worth asking what the organization has been teaching them to do. I heard this line in The Gentlemen:…
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Before you Decide What to Fix, Ask this…
Today’s Strategic Alignment Journal post in two sentences: When something stops producing the result we expect, our instinct is often to start fixing. Before deciding what needs to change, it may be more useful to identify what changed first. When anything stops working, our attention usually goes straight to the problem. The temptation is to…
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How to Avoid Floundering in a Sea of Indecision
Today’s Strategic Alignment Journal post in two sentences: Insufficient understanding can send us towards the wrong solution, but waiting for complete certainty can leave us moving along the same course by default. The aim is to determine what must be known, what can remain uncertain and when there is enough understanding to decide responsibly. I…
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A Decision Does Not Contain a Predictive Component
Today’s Strategic Alignment Journal post in two sentences: A good decision does not tell us what will happen. It simply reflects the quality of the understanding from which the choice was made. What makes one decision better than another? When we make a decision, we are not saying, “I know what will happen.” We are…
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You Cannot Deviate From a Baseline You Do Not Have
Today’s Strategic Alignment Journal post in two sentences: A deviation only tells us something when there is a consistent baseline against which to recognise it. Before trying to correct what has gone wrong, it is worth asking whether a reliable standard, rhythm or way of working ever existed in the first place. Dr Howard Luks…
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Beware: Systems have Delays
Today’s Strategic Alignment Journal post in two sentences: We often expect system changes to produce visible results quickly, and when they do not, we can mistake delay for failure and intervene again too soon. The better response is not simply to wait, but to look for early signals that the conditions for the intended outcome…
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When Our Expectations Become Someone Else’s Ceiling
Today’s Strategic Alignment Journal post in two sentences: What we assume people can do influences the opportunities we give them. Sometimes, the limits we see are the ones our own expectations have helped create. Walt Hunter was worried about his students. After nearly two decades of teaching, stories about declining reading habits, his own difficulty…
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Knowing Enough to be Wrong
Today’s Strategic Alignment Journal post in two sentences: We can know enough about a situation to develop a convincing explanation and still be unaware of what that explanation has failed to account for. The confidence created by partial understanding can be more dangerous than knowing very little at all. You can know enough about a…
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When the Right Decision Makes Things Worse First
Today’s Strategic Alignment Journal post in two sentences: Crocs deliberately accepted declining sales while it reduced discounts, restricted supply and cleared stale inventory from the market. Its experience shows why the earliest result of a decision does not always tell us whether the decision was right. When Crocs found itself with too much inventory and…
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Decide, then Do
Today’s Strategic Alignment Journal post in two sentences: Many of us treat how we feel about a choice as evidence of whether we made the right one. But our feelings can come and go while we continue to act according to what we have already decided. Tomorrow morning, you probably won’t feel like engaging in…
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