Skip to content

Clarity BEFORE Execution. Structure BEFORE Speed

If you could better understand one thing about your business right now….

share it here
Giselle Hudson | Pre-Decision Diagnostic Advisor | Sensemaking for high-stakes business decisions
  • Start Here
  • About
  • Working Together
  • The Journal
  • Spotlight Interviews™
    • This Week’s Spotlight…
    • Spotlight Interview Archive

Most costly decisions begin with
an inaccurate understanding of the situation.

I help leaders understand what is actually happening before major decisions are made or
resources are invested in solving the wrong problem.

Tag: preparation

  • Podcast Episode: Hidden Costs Of Efficiency

    Pip: There’s a whole industry built on helping businesses move faster — and Giselle Hudson has quietly made the case that speed might be the problem. Mara: This episode covers three territories: how organizations misdiagnose the problems they’re already mobilizing around, what happens when a workplace works efficiently but feels hollow, and how leaders get…

    Giselle

    May 22, 2026
    Strategic Sensemaking
    efficiency, operational misdiagnosis, podcast episode, preparation, problem misdiagnosis, problem solving
  • Luck Isn’t a Variable we can Control

    Luck is not a strategy we can depend on. It is a chaotic, non-random, yet unpredictable element rather than a manageable resource. A deal falls through and it was bad luck. Someone meets the right person at the right time and it was good luck. A business takes off, a career turns, a door opens,…

    Giselle

    March 20, 2026
    Strategic Sensemaking
    clarity, discipline, luck, preparation, strategy
  • Preparation Isn’t Readiness Until It Collides With the Real World

    Preparation must cross the social threshold where reality answers back, otherwise it quietly becomes sophisticated busy work. There is a stage of working where everything improves because nothing interrupts. You refine a model, polish an argument, sequence a plan, rehearse the explanation in your head and it holds together beautifully. Each pass removes friction. Each…

    Giselle

    February 13, 2026
    Strategic Sensemaking
    Alignment, confidence, expertise, improving, integrity, preparation, progress, revising, social threshold, structure
  • Are you really ready?

    The moment you say yes, you’re ready. At least, that’s the story we’ve been told. But what does ready actually mean? Most of us were raised on a traditional picture of readiness: It sounds responsible. It also keeps a lot of brilliance stuck at the starting line. The Myth of Traditional Readiness Traditional readiness is…

    Giselle

    September 26, 2025
    Strategic Sensemaking
    action, change, confidence, evolution, focus, market shift, perfection, personal energy, preparation, readiness, self acceptance, trust
  • The Visionary Who Forced Madison Avenue to Take Black Buying Power Seriously

    Picture America in 1970. Corporate boardrooms were almost entirely white and male. Major advertisers on Madison Avenue—the nerve center of U.S. marketing—saw the “general market” as code for white consumers. Black households, though representing billions of dollars in purchasing power, were either ignored or caricatured. Into that landscape stepped Earl G. Graves Sr. Brooklyn-born to…

    Giselle

    September 19, 2025
    ⚙️ Sensemaking in organizations, 🔄 Client Systems, 🧠 Zone of Genius
    advertising, BET, black economic power, black economy, Black Enterprise Magazine, Earl G. Graves, entrepreneurship, equity, execution, Madison Avenue, marketing, persuasion, preparation, success, vision, Zone of Genius
  • Don’t give guidance, unless it is based on your knowledge & experience

    There are three excuses we love using to avoid preparing methodically and thoroughly: I want to focus specifically on the third excuse: I KNOW HOW TO DO THIS. Years ago, when I was involved with AMWAY, I heard a speaker share the following: To know and not to do, is not to know In other…

    Giselle

    October 18, 2023
    Strategic Sensemaking
    Abraham Lincoln, excuses are useless, knowing versus doing, practice, preparation, prepare
  • Are You Spending Your Days and Wasting Your Precious Time Doing Pseudo-Work?

    “He’s not doing work…he’s doing the pretense of work.” This was the comment made by a visiting consultant after observing a then colleague of mine. The guy under scrutiny always looked busy, talked a good talk but accomplished very little. Pseudo-work – the illusion of actual work; to the untrained eye it looks as if…

    Giselle

    December 5, 2014
    Strategic Sensemaking
    Cal Newport, coaching system, coaching yourself, do the work, getting things done, preparation, reflection, Rob Hatch
  • If Your Boss Told You “Today is Your Last Day,” How Prepared are You for this News?

    Many of us dream of leaving our jobs…wishing. Whenever we get ticked off about something at work we fantasize about handing our boss this letter (taken from the prologue in Chris Guillebeau’s book – The $100 Startup: “Dear boss, I’m writing to let you know that your services are no longer required. Thanks for everything,…

    Giselle

    November 6, 2013
    Strategic Sensemaking
    being proactive, being unmistakable, choosing yourself, Chris Guillebeau, getting fired, James Altucher, pathway for preparation. uncertainty, preparation
  • What Season are You in?

    This is your time. This I know for sure. But you must first know the season you’re in. And yes, you need to think of your life as having seasons. It’s the best metaphor. I know some people who label their experiences in life as “….well it all comes down to the luck of the…

    Giselle

    August 1, 2013
    Strategic Sensemaking
    abundance, discipline, harvest, preparation, right habits, seasons of life
  • Never Apologize (in this context)…

    I’m reading Julia Child’s “My Life in France” with Alex Prud’homme. At a recent business event, I got up to make a comment. With my sore throat, I first apologized because my voice was hoarse. On getting back to my table, this woman who I had only met that morning said to me – “What…

    Giselle

    July 2, 2011
    Strategic Sensemaking
    apologizing, confidence, Don Miguel Ruiz, Julia Child, My Life in France, opinion, practice, preparation, public speaking, rehearsal, The Four Agreements
  • Start Here
  • About
  • Working Together
  • The Journal
  • Spotlight Interviews™
    • This Week’s Spotlight…
    • Spotlight Interview Archive
  • LinkedIn

Create a website or blog at WordPress.com

Loading Comments...

    • Subscribe Subscribed
      • Giselle Hudson | Pre-Decision Diagnostic Advisor | Sensemaking for high-stakes business decisions
      • Join 74 other subscribers
      • Already have a WordPress.com account? Log in now.
      • Giselle Hudson | Pre-Decision Diagnostic Advisor | Sensemaking for high-stakes business decisions
      • Subscribe Subscribed
      • Sign up
      • Log in
      • Report this content
      • View site in Reader
      • Manage subscriptions
      • Collapse this bar