June 23rd, 2010
The presentation file from my recent speaker session at ULI San Diego. Click here to download the handout.
January 25th, 2010
How well are you travelling? That’s a question I love to ask teams when starting to work with them, as it is the beginnings of getting them thinking about their agility as an organization. I usually get answers somewhere in the mix of “not too bad”. Then I ask them, “how do you know?” to which I get answers about metrics and surveys and similar things.
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January 18th, 2010
Accountability has always been tough but is getting tougher. As The Traffic of Dynamic Complexity has increased in our daily lives, we can feel overwhelmed and gridlocked. As a result, things don’t get done that needed to get done, which anybody could have done (Anybody, Anybody?).
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January 11th, 2010
Some things are so elegantly simple (Simplicity & Complexity), they are almost embarrassingly so, which is why most people don’t do them. As a result, they can often be left unnecessarily struggling with the complexity of things and wondering why things aren’t changing.
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January 4th, 2010
Like it or not, the portfolio of meetings you run is the gearbox of your business. Meetings are the collective mecahnism via which everything else meshes together, with the frequency and quality of communication, collaboration and coordination you need as a team for organizational agility.
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November 20th, 2009
The presentation file from my Vistage Resource Speaker Topic. Click here to download.
November 19th, 2009
The first 2-sided-card-stock handout of Architecting BREAKTHOUGH! Journeys. Click here to download the handout.
November 17th, 2009
The second 2-sided-card-stock handout of the Journey-Judgment Opportunity Assessment & 90 Day Plan to begin achitecting a BREAKTHROUGH! Click here to download the handout.
November 16th, 2009
A third 2-sided-card-stock handout of the summary graphic and model. Click here to download the handout.
November 1st, 2009
In here you will find the companion links from the book, "In the Driving Seat of Organizational Agility - are you Ready, Willing & Able?" organized in numerical order in which they appear in the book and by chapter/page number. Each link will take you to additional content, materials and resources as refereneced in the book. Enjoy.
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August 29th, 2009
Fast-cycle teamwork is at the core of our organizational agility, for which we need to rev-up the frequency of our communication, collaboration and coordination as a team. Here is a downloadable article, which you can also share with your team to explain as part of applying these ideas: Fast-Cycle Teamwork - what can we learn from fighter pilots?
June 12th, 2009
When faced with situations in which the demands for resources far exceed supply and circumstances are unfolding dynamically in unpredictable ways, we have no choice but to triage. Here are two definitions of “triage”:
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June 5th, 2009
“If a picture is worth a thousand words, a metaphor is worth a thousand pictures”, says Daniel Pink in his book, “A Whole New Mind – moving from the Information Age to the Conceptual Age”. Read the rest of this entry »
June 1st, 2009
Some of the leading edge thinking and research into organizational agility comes (not surprisingly) from the field of software development and the “Agile Software Development” set of methodologies, principles and tools.
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June 1st, 2009
You’ve probably seen this poem about four characters: Anybody, Somebody, Everybody & Nobody:
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June 1st, 2009
Month Six of our Fiscal Year (June for many of us) is a time for a Path-Finding Review.
June 1st, 2009
Look around your business at how well the wall space is being used, which is often one of the most under-utilized assets in your business. What if your walls could talk with more real-time, on-line-all-the-time information about your business, such as:
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May 24th, 2009
Learn to draw! That’s one of the recommendations from Daniel Pink in his book, “A Whole New Mind – moving from the Information Age to the Conceptual Age”. He reminds us that, “a picture is worth a thousand words”, saying:
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May 24th, 2009
Three is a powerful number which our breakthrough thinking can pivot around - keeping the elegant simplicity of “3” in mind helps us understand and solve complex problems. When wrestling with complex problems here are some hip-pocket ways to tap into breakthrough thinking which can come from the power of 3:
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May 24th, 2009
Our organizational agility depends upon our mental agility, individually and collectively, to be able to pivot our breakthrough thinking in creative ways, unlocking new perspectives, possibilities and options. Read the rest of this entry »
May 10th, 2009
As the saying goes, “when you need a friend, it’s too late to make one”.
Make friends with organizational agility before it’s too late. When you find yourself in a situation in which you need agility as your friend, or a new level of agility than you have needed before, it’s too late, because:
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May 10th, 2009
When you walk into assuming some new kind of responsibility on day 1, that’s when you get to display what I call your “clean-sheet-ability” – the ability to inherit a clean-sheet of responsibility for a situation and start linking and accumulating thoughts, questions, decisions and actions from moment one – in the first few hours, days, weeks, months and quarters. It’s a journey and it’s very telling, as there is nowhere to hide.
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May 1st, 2009
In particular in these turbulent, uncertain times, when our approach to execution excellence isn’t clicking well, we experience Wheel$pin, which costs us a fortune in avoidable-costs and opportunity-costs:
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May 1st, 2009
Last week was a “5th Week” for me. What do I mean by that?
I design my monthly work pattern/schedule around a 4 week month and yet there are 13 weeks in each quarter, so one of the months has a 5th week in it - or some might call it a 13th week. You might be wondering why that didn’t happen in week 13 of the year, rather than last week, which was week 18?
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May 1st, 2009
Traditional “Strategic Planning & Implementation” tends to go something like this:
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May 1st, 2009
Agility doesn’t happen by accident, it happens by design. We might be tempted to think that “keeping things loose, unstructured and organic around here” is the best way to be agile. Wrong, unless a chaotic stampede is what you are looking for. We can’t afford for things to be too loose, unstructured and organic if we want agility. We also can’t afford for things to be too tight, structured and inorganic/rigid either if we want agility. It’s an “and” proposition of loose and tight, structured and unstructured, organic and rigid and many other “and” propositions in the mix Read the rest of this entry »
May 1st, 2009
Month Five of our Fiscal Year (May for many of us) is a time for another Quarterly Traction Review.
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April 27th, 2009
In the face of a complex systemic problem requiring a systemic solution, it can feel like a daunting mountain to climb. If we are not careful, we tend to focus on the peak and the big fix solution which that represents, working backwards from that future with no clear path of how on earth we will ever achieve it. It feels like too big a mountain to climb, especially when it is just one peak in the mountain range of other systemic problems requiring systemic solutions. Read the rest of this entry »
April 27th, 2009
While "beginning with the end in mind" is still a good idea, developing the advantage of organizational agility these days also demands a willingness to get going in the dark, letting the sun rise on the path.
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April 23rd, 2009
The presentation file from my recent speaker session at HFMA San Diego. Click here to download the handout.
April 21st, 2009
I used the Execution Excellence model as the accumulation of my insight into the challenge executives face in the driving seat of organizational agility these days, and the skills they need to be mastering detail complexity and dynamic complexity.
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April 19th, 2009
The head-gear worn by the king is the crown. Cash is King, still - it always had been and it always will be. Some things never change - in bad times, in good times and in great times, surviving and thriving is about not running out of cash! The crowning head-gear has changed though - what did the crown used to be in your industry? Maybe size; maybe reach; maybe deep pockets? Now it’s agility - organizational agility - for cash to be king, that’s what we have to wear as our crowning head-gear, which frames our mindset, our mental-model, the way we are wired.
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April 19th, 2009
Would your executives agree?
"Organizational Agility is a core differentiator in today’s rapidly changing business environment" - that’s the number 1 conclusion from a recent (March 2009) report from the Economist Intelligence Unit. Nearly 90% of the executives surveyed (349 business executives from 8 countries, including the US, 19 industries and with revenues ranging from under $500M to over $5Bn) believe that Organizational Agility is critical for business success. Read the rest of this entry »
April 13th, 2009
These weekly tips are to encourage you to "hit singles" - each week, to single out one thing which, in addition to everything else you already have going on, you are going to hit hard to begin brewing up a breakthrough (the home run which will eventually come). 52 weeks of singles will add up to a lot of breakthroughs! Read the rest of this entry »
April 10th, 2009
The message is coming across loud and clear:
- "Organizational Agility is a core differentiator in today’s rapidly changing business environment" - that’s the number one conclusion from a recent (March 2009) report from the Economist Intelligence Unit, entitled, “Organizational Agility: how business can survive and thrive in turbulent times”. Nearly 90% of the executives surveyed (349 business executives from 8 countries including the US, from 19 industries and with revenues ranging from under $500M to over $5Bn) believe that Organizational Agility is critical for business success. Read the rest of this entry »
April 6th, 2009
Are you truly "tackling" issues or just "tickling" them every once in a while and wondering why not much has changed? Systemic problems require systemic solutions - we have to be tackling the whole and the parts of the system in an organized, simultaneous manner, to orchestrate a breakthrough and allow system performance to pop to the next level. Anything less and we are just tickling the issue and are fooling ourselves that there is going to be any kind of breakthrough. We are just "tickling" the problem, not "tackling" it. Read the rest of this entry »
April 1st, 2009
Month Four of our Fiscal Year (April for many of us) is a time to practice the 3Rs of Re-aligning, Re-enrolling & Re-engaging our team, broadly and deeply across our organization.
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March 21st, 2009
Agility requires constant organizational learning and institutionalizing those lessons learned, so that history has less chance of repeating itself, even if it is well disguised. Any time history remotely repeats itself, that is wheelspin by definition, which could have been avoided if we had more traction on continuous improvement and institutionalizing lessons learned. The nameless, rankless debrief can help you.
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March 21st, 2009
Achieving breakthroughs is hard work - by definition we are trying to create systemic solutions to systemic problems which don’t happen by accident. We are typically gridlocked with insufficient time, money and resources. To unlock the gridlock, we need to employ the principle of compound interest and the 1% solution.
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March 18th, 2009
A recurring and rigorous strategy conversation is about having options. The further up and out we expand the envelope of our strategy conversation then the more options we have – 
“up” in terms of the altitude of our strategic thinking/ conversation and “out” in terms of the time-horizon of our strategic thinking/conversation (Execution Excellence - missing in action?).
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March 16th, 2009
If Alan Mulally, the CEO of Ford, can do it, you sure as heck can! Hold a morning meeting (or a daily huddle at some other time of day) that is. As reported in an article in this week’s BusinessWeek Magazine (Ford’s Savior, March 16th, 2009):
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March 2nd, 2009
Does your team have what it takes to be a tiger? I love the series of advertisements Accenture has progressively created with Tiger Woods, which speak directly to our work.
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March 1st, 2009
These days, we must be comfortable being uncomfortable, expecting the unexpected and being ready, willing and able to manage things as they unfold.
In their 2007 book, "Managing the Unexpected – Resilient Performance in an Age of Uncertainty", Karl Weick & Kathleen Sutcliffe put it this way:
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March 1st, 2009
We can easily veer off track of the journey to mastery of our organizational agility. There are 5 Dangerous Detours (with tragic consequences) and 10 Mental Modes Avoid Them, outlined in this category of blogs.
March 1st, 2009
We can easily end up being half-brained, with too much empasis either left or right, each being bad news and a dangerous detour with potentially tragic consequences.
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March 1st, 2009
We can easily default to simplicity this side of complexity, which is bad news and a dangerous detour with potentially tragic consequences.
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March 1st, 2009
We can easily give into the presure of premature closure, which is bad news and a dangeous detour with potentially tragic consequences.
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March 1st, 2009
Like anything we offer, the key is a compelling value-proposition, Read the rest of this entry »
March 1st, 2009
We can easily lapse into "either/or" propositions, which is bad news and a dangerous detour with potentially tragic cosnequences.
March 1st, 2009
We can easily talk ourselves out of planning, which is bad news and a dangerous detour with potentially tragic consequences.
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February 28th, 2009
Frequently Asked Question: "Why do we need a Traction Plan and an Annual Plan of Goals?" and, in some cases, "Why do we need a Traction Plan when we already have an Annual Plan of Corprate Goals?"
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February 27th, 2009
Remember the last time you experienced the benefits of organizational agility – your ability to cope with rapidly changing circumstances and navigate around avoidable-costs and opportunity-costs – think about where that agility came from. Read the rest of this entry »
February 20th, 2009
In my recent Fridays-with-Vistage webinar to 500+ CEOs and senior Executives entitled, "Execution Excellence for Uncertain Times: developing the advantage of organizational agility", we explored the challenges of these turbulent economic times.
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February 15th, 2009
Month Three of our Fiscal Year (March for many of us) is a time for a Semi-Annual Strategic Review.
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January 15th, 2009
Month Two of our Fiscal Year (February for many of us) is a time for a Quarterly Traction Review.
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January 13th, 2009
Bringing Journey Orientation into focus.
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January 12th, 2009
Reinforcing a Mindset of Operations Management.
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January 11th, 2009
Enhancing Strategic Productivity.
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January 10th, 2009
Accentuating Short-Range Culture.
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January 9th, 2009
Keeping our Flight Planning envelope expanded to our full Execution Excellence agenda.
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January 8th, 2009
Tackling Operational Productivity.
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January 7th, 2009
Holding a Recurring, Rigorous & Rallying Strategy Process.
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January 6th, 2009
Re-engineering Structures, Processes & Systems.
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January 5th, 2009
Orchestrating a Goal-Setting Cascade & Review Process.
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January 4th, 2009
Unlocking & Challenging Mental Models.
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January 3rd, 2009
Guiding Leadership/Communication Skills & Style.
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January 2nd, 2009
Handling Accountability for Long-Range Culture.
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January 1st, 2009
!ntegrating our Enterprise Execution Capability & Capacity.
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December 15th, 2008
Month One of our Fiscal Year (January for many of us) is a time to do an Opportunity Assessment:
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December 10th, 2008
Organizational Agility relies upon an integrated system of crucial components, interfacing and interacting with each other to provide you the agility you need, when you need it. Often times, we don’t know that we lack agility until it is too late (Making Friends with Organizational Agility).
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November 9th, 2008
As Gary Hamel says in his 2007 book, The Future of Management:
"Management is out of date. Like the combustion engine, it’s a technology that has largely stopped evolving and that’s not good. 
21st century challenges are testing the design limits of organizations around the world and are exposing the limitations of a management model that has failed to keep pace with the times. What ultimately constrains the performance of your organization is not its operating model, not its business model, buts its management model.
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November 8th, 2008
Are you experiencing a constant white-water ride?
You seem to be in a constant state of buffeting by unexpected events, hanging on tight as best you can to just go with the flow and unsure what’s around the next corner. There never seems to be any quiet water, even just an eddy you can circle out into for some respite. Clearly, in acutely uncertain and turbulent times, we all experience white-water to some degree, when all we can do is hang on tight and go with the flow, putting an oar back in the water as and when we can. That’s one way to travel, but its stressful, frustrating and painful, not least of all finacially.
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November 7th, 2008
How much time, energy, attention, paperwork, systems, software and, above all else, discipline, do we invest in the financial accounting of our businesses? A lot. And by comparison, how much do we invest in the “strategic accounting” (translating strategy and execution into traction) of our business?
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November 5th, 2008
How serious are you ,individually and collectively, about being fully in the driving seat of your organizational agility, translating strategy and execution into traction?
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October 31st, 2008
The OODA Loop is the essence of how fighter pilots are trained. It captures the idea of a never ending loop of Observing, Orienting, Deciding and Acting. 
Pilots are trained, trained again and trained some more, to master the detail complexity and dynamic complexity (see: change has changed) of piloting a fighter jet, to have a smaller OODA Loop than their adversary. In that way, their OODA Loop can operate inside their adversary’s OODA Loop , outmaneuvering them and winning the dogfight.
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October 17th, 2008
For organizational agility we need luck on our side. If, as the saying goes, “luck is where preparation meets opportunity” then an ongoing strategy process is about the “preparation” part of that and being ever prepared. As others have said: Read the rest of this entry »
October 3rd, 2008
In his 1992 book, Mastery, George Leonard defines mastery as, “the mysterious process during which what is at first difficult becomes progressively easier and more pleasurable through practice” and outlines the nature of the journey: Read the rest of this entry »
September 9th, 2008
So what do we mean by “dynamic complexity”?
In his 1990 book, The Fifth Discipline, Peter Senge said:
"There are two types of complexity – detail complexity and dynamic complexity. The real leverage in most management situations lies in understanding dynamic complexity not detail complexity”
He goes on to say:
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August 5th, 2008
“Keep it simple stupid” can be the KISS of death. Here’s why, as captured by one of my favorite quotes:
"I wouldn’t give a fig for the simplicity this side of complexity but I’d give my life for simplicity on the far side of complexity” (Oliver Wendell Holmes).
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August 3rd, 2008
How much time, energy, attention, paperwork, systems and, above all else, discipline do we invest in the financial accounting of our businesses? A lot. And by comparison, how much do we invest in the “strategic accounting” of our business? (The Financial Accounting vs "Strategic Accounting" of your Business) Or are we paying some degree of lip service to it instead? In my experience, it’s a strategy tragedy, which could cause a kind of Eastern Airlines tragedy (see: Divergence and Convergence) with your business.
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June 3rd, 2008
The ability to navigating a middle road of divergence and convergence Is increasingly essential these days. It’s a key “and” we have to master (see: Mastering the Challenge of the “and”) in the face of the changing nature of change (see: Change Has Changed).
It’s about our thinking, questions, decision and actions (see Strate’gems article: Read the rest of this entry »
May 6th, 2008
Life used to be slow enough for “or” propositions to be OK – it was OK to be operational or strategic, short-term or long-term and leader or a manager. Not any more. Life has become too fast moving for that and the pace of change is accelerating all the time (see: Change Has Changed). Now we have to master “and” propositions, being strategic and operational, short-term and long-term oriented, a leader and a manager all at the same time. Read the rest of this entry »
April 3rd, 2008
The nature of change itself has changed. 
It has become much more like a dynamic journey on a shifting landscape.
In his 1999 book, Birth of the Chaordic Age, Dee Hock puts it this way:
“Fasten your seatbelts. The turbulence has scarcely begun. With accelerating speed, we’ve transcended boundary after boundary of diversity and complexity. The past is ever less predictive; the future is ever less predictable and the present scarcely exists at all”.
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And if we’re not prepared, we’re going to die up there. Or we’re going to be in real serious trouble. We need to understand what separates those who do well from those who don’t do well when the world spins completely out of our control. We just finished six years of what we call our turbulence research".
Execution Excellence: Missing-in-Action
Mike's Own Journey
See Mike giving one of his keynote speeches,