Strategy Archives

Leveraging The Power of Value Discipline Thinking

From the list of, “Books that I truly wish had updated editions” comes one of my top 10 favorites, the 1997 book, “The Discipline of Market Leaders,” by Michael Treacy and Fred Wiersma. I re-read this book…or at least parts of it every year and I still carry through the concepts in my academic and client strategy work. While the examples are brutally dated and some of the companies have moved from good to great to gone, I find the framework of Value Discipline thinking to be a powerful tool that is easy for students and clients to digest and one that is useful in guiding strategic choices.

By Art Petty|2024-08-08T13:41:11-05:00January 6th, 2010|1,770 Legacy Leadership Caffeine and Management Articles|2 Comments

Leadership Caffeine™-Develop a Big Picture View or Risk Becoming a Carp

Far too many leaders that I work with lack awareness of the broader forces swirling around their firms, their customers and those shape-shifting clusters that we describe as industries. Given the hurricane like market and societal forces buffeting our globe today, a strategy of boarding up the windows and hunkering down is tantamount to committing corporate suicide. Yet, mostly by the sin of omission, this is exactly what I’m observing inside too many organizations.

By Art Petty|2024-08-08T13:41:14-05:00January 4th, 2010|1,770 Legacy Leadership Caffeine and Management Articles|2 Comments

Increase Your Team’s Global Awareness or Risk Being Run Over

Too many of our businesses, business leaders, citizens and politicians fail to understand, pay attention to or even appreciate the impact of the ever-changing global business environment. Or, if they do appreciate the impact, many are caught like the proverbial “deer in the headlights,” staring as the global competitors approach at an accelerating rate.

By Art Petty|2024-08-08T13:41:23-05:00December 16th, 2009|1,770 Legacy Leadership Caffeine and Management Articles|0 Comments

Leadership Caffeine™: Five Simple Suggestions for Minimizing Management Myopia

Participate in or monitor enough management team conversations and you will invariably conclude that it’s darned hard for these teams to spend quality time discussing external issues. The gravitational pull of internal “stuff” is overwhelming and resists all attempts to move the conversation to topics outside of the firm’s four walls, preferring instead to keep managers focused on the nuances of their own operations. The result is a self-fulfilling management myopia where the view on the world is grossly limited to the immediate surroundings…and ranges as far as the eyes can see outside conference room windows.

By Art Petty|2024-08-08T13:41:41-05:00November 29th, 2009|1,770 Legacy Leadership Caffeine and Management Articles|10 Comments

Leadership 2009 Style-What We Learned

Mix one part global economic crisis with ample quantities of uncertainty and ambiguity. Stir in two-parts ever-changing global competition and a dash of geopolitical instability and you’ll end up with something that looks and feels a lot like the world of today, complete with the mild aftertaste of fear. You’ll also end up with a remarkable living leadership laboratory, where the best leaders are rediscovering the importance of leadership blocking and tackling while simultaneously developing the new skills and approaches required in this complex environment.

By Art Petty|2024-08-08T13:41:43-05:00November 24th, 2009|1,770 Legacy Leadership Caffeine and Management Articles|12 Comments

Once More On the SoapBox: Strategy and the Leader

There is no more mystical and in some cases mythical concept in all of business than the word, "Strategy." Perhaps because it has been long claimed by academics and expensive consultants and bandied about exclusively by executives in boardrooms, while everyone else waits for the CEO to come down from on high with the clay tablets and of course, clarity, firmly in hand. Here are some suggestions for beginning to take the myth out of strategy in your organization:

By Art Petty|2024-08-08T13:41:55-05:00November 4th, 2009|1,770 Legacy Leadership Caffeine and Management Articles|2 Comments

Sales & Strategy Playbook: Competitor Acquired? It May Be a Gold-Plated, Gift-Wrapped Opportunity

In talking with a CEO friend running a smaller tech firm, he indicated that there is increasing buzz about various potential combinations and roll-ups that will impact his specific sector. He said this with a smile, and an interesting observation that “when my competitors are acquired, our business spikes and new opportunities are uncovered.” That's an Interesting way to look at the situation. I know a lot of people who fear the outcome of Competitor X merging with Firm Y.

By Art Petty|2024-08-08T13:43:46-05:00August 11th, 2009|1,770 Legacy Leadership Caffeine and Management Articles|0 Comments

Jump-Start Strategy By Jumping Straight to the Middle of the Process

Get your team talking about the right topics and get them focused on assessing and comparing based on the criteria that are the most important to your success. Skip the summer strategy offsite and start the dialogue on determining what’s truly important, and you’ll find yourself and your organization moving and working the right things faster than you might imagine.

By Art Petty|2024-08-08T13:44:21-05:00July 17th, 2009|1,770 Legacy Leadership Caffeine and Management Articles|0 Comments

Strategic Awareness: The Second Leg of the Emerging Leader’s Three Legged Stool

One of the things that I truly love about this time we are living and working through is the front-row seats that we all have to some fascinating experiments in strategy. Things happen so quickly and with such widespread coverage in today’s world, that it often looks and feels like a strategist’s living laboratory on Miracle Gro.

By Art Petty|2024-08-08T13:44:29-05:00July 8th, 2009|1,770 Legacy Leadership Caffeine and Management Articles|2 Comments

The Seven Critical Conversations of Great Firms and Great Leaders

You learn a great deal about an organization’s current state, near-term prospects and about the health and effectiveness of a firm’s leaders by looking for and listening to the quality of the conversations in the working environment. There are at least Seven Critical Conversations that I observe taking place over and over again in organizations that that are either successful or improving. These same conversations are often nowhere to be found except perhaps behind the closed doors of a firm’s leaders in less successful firms or organizations that are struggling and sinking.

By Art Petty|2024-08-08T13:44:35-05:00June 23rd, 2009|1,770 Legacy Leadership Caffeine and Management Articles|6 Comments