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The Blind Spot of Expertise
Today’s Strategic Alignment Journal post in two sentences: Experience helps us recognize patterns, make informed decisions and interpret complex situations, but it can also lead us to rely on familiar explanations without recognizing what makes a situation different. The value of expertise lies not only in what we know, but in our willingness to question…
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Designing With People, Not Just for Them
Today’s Strategic Alignment Journal post in two sentences: Organizations often introduce new systems and processes without adequately involving the people who understand how work actually gets done, only to interpret subsequent workarounds and inconsistent adoption as employee resistance. Designing with people rather than simply for them brings practical knowledge and experience into decisions about what…
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Death by Playbook: Why Copy-Paste Growth Fails
Today’s Strategic Alignment Journal post in two sentences: Growth playbooks can provide useful guidance, but adopting another organization’s strategies, structures and practices without understanding the conditions that made them successful can create more problems than they solve. Sustainable scaling requires an understanding of your own business’s ambitions, capabilities and constraints rather than assuming that someone…
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Perfect Harmony, Broken Infrastructure: The Illusion of Strategic Alignment
Today’s Strategic Alignment Journal post in two sentences: An organization can have a beautifully articulated strategic plan, with its vision, mission, values and priorities appearing perfectly aligned, while its structures, systems and everyday practices contradict what it intends to achieve. Meaningful strategic alignment requires more than agreement on direction; the organization’s operating infrastructure must support…
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Feeding the Cobra: Why Our Fixes Backfire
Today’s Strategic Alignment Journal post in two sentences: Organizations sometimes introduce solutions that unintentionally encourage the very behaviors or conditions they are trying to eliminate, leaving problems unresolved or even making them worse. Understanding how interventions influence behavior, incentives and organizational practices is essential to avoiding unintended consequences and recognizing when the solution itself has…
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The Mispricing of Worth: Consumer Behavior and Value Substitution
Today’s Strategic Alignment Journal post in two sentences: An old dresser attracted no apparent interest when offered for free, yet reportedly disappeared within an hour of being given a $50 price tag, raising questions about how price influences our perceptions of worth. Price may influence perceptions of quality and value, but the amount charged doesn’t…
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The Fix Forward Session: Tackling Recurring Roadblocks
Today’s Strategic Alignment Journal post in two sentences: Organizations can conduct increasingly effective meetings while continuing to discuss the same unresolved problems, introducing corrective actions without adequately understanding why previous efforts have failed. The Fix Forward Session™ changes the conversation from repeatedly managing recurring issues to understanding what keeps them in place before determining what…
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Broken by Design: Why Good Intentions Ruin Great Businesses
Today’s Strategic Alignment Journal post in two sentences: A bustling neighbourhood café attracted loyal customers despite its apparent disorganization, but when a new owner introduced operational improvements, the business lost much of what had made it successful. Improving a business without first understanding what makes it work can destroy the very things that create value,…
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When a Mistake Becomes a Position
Today’s Strategic Alignment Journal post in two sentences: A mistake may begin as one decision, but the effort to defend it can gradually create problems far greater than the original error. Recognizing when a decision needs to be reconsidered is an important part of leadership, accountability and strategic alignment. In organizations, mistakes often begin with…
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Keep Working On Your Thing Until Persuasion Becomes Unnecessary
Today’s Strategic Alignment Journal post in two sentences: Not everything valuable begins with knowing where it is going. Sometimes the work is to notice what keeps presenting itself, follow it without forcing an outcome, and know when you have taken it as far as you can. Rick Rubin is one of the most influential music…
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