BLOG ON STRATEGY & INNOVATION
Ideas, tools and frameworks to reimagine strategy, build innovation capability, and lead with purpose in an AI‑transformed world
The Adaptability Blind Spot: When You're Executing an Obsolete Growth Strategy
In an AI-accelerated world, strategic plans age faster than ever. And yet, many companies double down on outdated plans rather than adapt to emerging opportunities. This is the essence of the Adaptability Blind Spot.
In the ninth and final article of the Growth Blind Spots series, I explore how to unlock the adaptability needed for sustainable growth in a highly uncertain world.
Acquisition Avoidance: When Organisations Turn Their Back on M&A
Most organisations want to grow... but turn their back on one of the most powerful tools in their arsenal: acquisitions.
Why? Because they don’t feel ready to manage the complexities and high stakes of acquisition, and that leads to widespread Acquisition Avoidance.
In the eighth article of The Growth Blind Spot series, I explore why this bias exists and what to do about it.
The Partnership Blind Spot: Why Going It Alone Holds Back Your Growth Potential
Too many organisations rely on an outdated view of partnerships, treating them as transactional rather than transformational.
It is a big blind spot in today’s world where growth opportunities lie in ecosystems, deliberately shaped networks of diverse actors that can solve problems no single organisation can crack alone.
In the seventh article of The Growth Blind Spot series, I explore the Partnership Blind Spot, and how to overcome it.
The Exploration Blind Spot: When Organisations Can't See Beyond Their Core
Most organisations get stuck in what we call the “Exploration Blind Spot”: focusing solely on their core business while missing growth opportunities that lie just beyond their comfort zone.
In the sixth article of the Growth Blind Spots series, I unpack the Exploration Blind Spot and what to do to overcome it.
The Core Health Blind Spot: Throwing Money at a Dying Business Model
Too many organisations keep throwing money, energy and people at a declining core, without realising the business model itself is the problem.
In the fifth article of the Growth Blind Spots series, I unpack the Core Health Blind Spot, and what to do about it.
The Employee Blind Spot: When You Lead but No One Follows
Too often, leaders focus on crafting visionary strategies while overlooking the people who must bring them to life.
In the fourth article of the Growth Blind Spots series, I explore the Employee Blind Spot, the hidden gap between growth ambition and people enablement.
The Trend-Spotting Blind Spot: When Missing a Key Trend Stifles your Growth
What you don’t see can hurt you. Many once-dominant companies failed, not because of lack of resources or execution, but because they misread or ignored key trends.
In the third article of the Growth Blind Spots series, I explore the Trend-Spotting Blind Spot, one of the most overlooked risks for a Growth Strategy.
The Strategy Blind Spot: When your Strategy Process Constrains Growth
In the second article of the Growth Blind Spots series, I explore why many strategic processes fail to create real impact, and how to break free from the trap of a too narrow or outdated strategy process in order to unlock long-term growth.
The Purpose Blind Spot: When Growth Has No Meaning
In the first article of the Growth Blind Spots series, I explore the ‘Purpose Blind Spot’, a common hurdle when organisations chase growth but lose sight of why they exist in the first place.
In the piece, I break down why purpose isn’t just a ‘nice to have’ but a vital driver of sustainable growth.
Melway, A Disruption Story
In this article, I share three enduring lessons on disruption based on the journey of one of Australian most iconic products, Melway:
1. The Customer Job Endures, But the Solution Evolves
2. It’s Always Hard for the Incumbent to React to Disruption
3. The Road to Obsolescence is a Slow Descent
5 Key Insights on AI from Yuval Noah Harari's latest book
In this article , I share five key insights drawn from Yuval Noah Harari’s latest book, Nexus; insights that every leader navigating the accelerating impact of AI on business and society should understand.
Up-ruption, an interview with Greg Bernarda
During his latest visit to Australia, I took the opportunity to interview Greg Bernarda to shed some light on the up-ruption global movement he’s been leading.
Why is the Innovation Readiness Gap wider than ever?
BCG's latest research highlights a widening innovation readiness gap: never since they started producing this report has the priority of innovation been so high and the innovation readiness been so low!
Drawing from our Vibrance experiences across Australia and abroad in the last 24 months, I delve deeper into the underlying reasons behind this alarming trend.
Where does innovation fit in your growth strategy?
In a large organisation, it is possible for corporate innovation to exist in isolation. Until an Executive pulls the plug one day out of frustration. Corporate innovation can only become sustainable when it’s no longer an isolated practice, and it has become a critical vehicle to deliver strategic growth objectives.
In this blogpost I want to highlight the key question that will guide you towards having innovation closely connected to the overall strategy of an organisation, and then propose a simple framework to clarify your innovation strategy.
Strategic questioning to unlock growth
I facilitate a lot of strategy sessions and one thing that I observed is that in 99.9% of cases, strategic objectives are about growth. So, you would think that everyone is clear by now on all the different ways an organisation can unlock growth. Well, it’s not been my experience.
In this blogpost I want to highlight the key strategic questions and steps that will guide you towards creating a growth plan that makes growth objectives explicit, and more importantly clarifies where growth will come.
Is the tide turning on Zara and fast fashion?
A recent heated conversation about Zara reminded me of the inflection point concept that Rita McGrath introduces in her book titled Seeing Around Corners.
In this blogpost I highlight three characteristics of inflection points that every leader should be aware of to help their organisation navigate them.
Four strategic shifts to achieve both growth and sustainability targets
For a long time, growth and sustainability seemed like obvious opposites, with efforts in one negatively impacting the other. But this is now changing rapidly.
In this blogpost I examine 4 strategic questions every leader should explore to achieve both growth and sustainability targets in the years ahead.
How can organisations…
differentiate products and services through sustainability?
decarbonise a Business Model?
explore new green business ideas?
re-balance their business portfolio towards a more sustainable portfolio?
Innovation requires deep alignment of executives and the board
Creating a sustainable innovation capability in an organisation is big endeavour that requires strong leadership vision, a vision truly understood and endorsed by the board.
In the last few years, I have developed an approach that helps executives and directors better understand disruption risks and strategic opportunities, requirements for exploration of those opportunities, and their respective roles to design and execute corporate innovation.
In this blogpost, I will focus on key questions that usually best contribute to shifting directors’ perspective on risk management and innovation, and ultimately create enthusiasm to have innovation added to the agenda of the board.
How to truly help leaders with visioning work?
The ability to go beyond an existing business model, to transcend current industry boundaries, or to connect to a higher purpose that we’ve seen in some organisations all started with a new vision. But this doesn’t happen that often.
In this blogpost I want to summarise key convictions on how to truly help business leaders free themselves from the daily grind and come up with positive visions for their companies.
What the latest IPCC report changes to your strategic process
Findings in the International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report published at the end of February 2022 show that climate breakdown is happening faster than expected. The report insists on the potential dire consequences of inaction for human beings and businesses.
In this article I want to highlight how this impacts strategic planning as “climate change” could quickly become the main threat to deal with for any organisation, and its biggest opportunity at the same time.