Focus


Book Description

This book assesses the strategy challenges faced by executives in formulating strategy and driving execution. The authors present seven inhibitors of strategy effectiveness in companies large and small as well as seven actionable research-based strategy enablers to fine tune execution and rally all the stakeholders in a unified direction. By reading this book, you will find answers to the following: What is the state of strategy formulation and execution in companies like mine? Why is the strategy process so frustrating and difficult, and how can it be simplified? How can senior executives on my team meaningfully improve strategy planning and execution to grow sales and profit? How can my company hold the strategy planning process to account? If you are looking for guidance on leading your organization’s strategy and execution for sales and profit growth, this book will serve as a valuable resource for becoming more effective at strategy formulation.




The Strategy-focused Organization


Book Description

A Powerful New Approach to Performance Management from the Creators of the Balanced Scorecard In Today's business environment, strategy has never been more important. Yet research shows that most companies fail to execute strategy successfully. Behind this abysmal track record lies an undeniable fact: many companies continue to use management processes-top-down, financially driven, and tactical-that were designed to run yesterday's organizations. Now, the creators of the revolutionary performance management tool called the Balanced Scorecard introduce a new approach that makes strategy a continuous process owned not just by top management, but by everyone. In The Strategy-Focused Organization, Robert Kaplan and David Norton share the results of ten years of learning and research into more than 200 companies that have implemented the Balanced Scorecard. Drawing from more than twenty in-depth case studies-including Mobil, CIGNA, Nova Scotia Power, and AT and T Canada-Kaplan and Norton illustrate how Balanced Scorecard adopters have taken their ground-breaking tool to the next level. These organizations have used the scorecard to create an entirely new performance management framework that puts strategy at the center of key management processes and systems. Kaplan and Norton articulate the five key principles required for building Strategy-Focused Organizations: (1) translate the strategy to operational terms, (2) align the organization to the strategy, (3) make strategy everyone's everyday job, (4) make strategy a continual process, and (5) mobilize change through strong, effective leadership. The authors provide a detailed account of how a range of organizations in the private, public, and nonprofit sectors have deployed these principles to achieve breakthrough, sustainable performance improvements. Presenting a practical, proven framework steeped in rich case study experience, The Strategy-Focused Organization helps solve a universal management problem-not just how to formulate strategy, but how to make it work. Building on one of the most revolutionary business ideas of our time, this important book shows how today's leaders can shape their own companies to meet the challenges and reap the rewards of a new competitive era.




Deep Dive


Book Description

Get competitive by learning to think strategically.The inability to set good strategy can sink a company¿and a leader¿s career. A recent Wall Street Journal study revealed that the most sought-after executive skill is strategic thinking, but only three out of ten managers have this skill set.Horwath explains the three keys to strategic thinking, breaks them down into simple, attainable skills, and gives you practical tools to apply them every day, providing managers with a clear path to mastery of the three disciplines: 1. Acumen¿generate critical insights through a step-by-step evaluation of your business and its environment2. Allocation¿focus your limited resources through strategic trade-offs 3. Action¿implement a system to guarantee effective execution of strategy at all levels of your organization Based on new research with senior executives from 150 companies and the author¿s experience as a thought-leading strategist, Deep Dive is the first book to focus on the most important level of strategy¿you. Armed with this knowledge and dozens of effective tools, you can become a truly strategic leader for your organization.--Rich Horwath is the president of the Strategic Thinking Institute, a former chief strategy officer, and professor of strategy at the Lake Forest Graduate School of Management. As a thought-leading strategist, he has worked with such giants as Adidas, Amgen, and Pfizer. He is the author of four books and more than fifty articles on strategic thinking and has been profiled in business publications around the world, including Investor¿s Business Daily.




The Blendification System


Book Description

Shelving Guide: Business and Management / Strategic Planning / Leadership / Operations Culture, Strategy, Execution. These three components forge the path to realized potential. The Blendification® System breaks down and rebuilds these core concepts within your company's DNA, setting the foundation for an energizing, engaging, and impactful organization. It is based on the belief that many organizations fail to maximize their potential because they simply do not comprehend the magnitude of their personal and collective untapped capabilities. Many workplaces are stuck in "second gear," not quite embracing and pursuing their full potential. Corporate missions are based on market dominance and incremental profit growth, leaving a massive blind spot in terms of the connection between employees, customers, and communities. This short-sightedness may provide a clear focal point, but it leaves the company, its leadership, and its employees with limited sustained motivation to realize potential. The Blendification® System embraces the connection between culture, strategy, and execution using the Strategy Whiteboard and integrating emotional and system intelligence into the following three-step model: Strategic Analysis including Culture Strategic Focus, Strategic Outcomes, and Strategic Actions Strategic Execution The Blendification® System connects culture, strategy, and execution in a meaningful way that fosters an inspired, exceptional workforce. By focusing on the unifying purpose within each organization, the platform promotes alignment between leadership and employees setting a clear, strong foundation in which every individual can thrive. With this foundation in place, organizations activate their employee's potential who then take care of their customers. By fully engaging those with whom organizations directly interact, these individuals then become the spark that ignites community-wide advancement. This is not a theory-based, philosophical book. This is an in-depth operating system by which organizations reshape their infrastructure to realize potential. The methodology outlined in The Blendification® System creates agile and efficient action, maximizing success in periods of economic expansion and times of uncertainty such as the COVID-19 outbreak, the Great Recession, and 9/11. By following the structure outlined in The Blendification® System and using the Strategy Whiteboard, organizations will move beyond financial success to uplifting employees, customers, and entire communities.




Strategic Vision


Book Description




Good Strategy Bad Strategy


Book Description

Good Strategy/Bad Strategy clarifies the muddled thinking underlying too many strategies and provides a clear way to create and implement a powerful action-oriented strategy for the real world. Developing and implementing a strategy is the central task of a leader. A good strategy is a specific and coherent response to—and approach for—overcoming the obstacles to progress. A good strategy works by harnessing and applying power where it will have the greatest effect. Yet, Rumelt shows that there has been a growing and unfortunate tendency to equate Mom-and-apple-pie values, fluffy packages of buzzwords, motivational slogans, and financial goals with “strategy.” In Good Strategy/Bad Strategy, he debunks these elements of “bad strategy” and awakens an understanding of the power of a “good strategy.” He introduces nine sources of power—ranging from using leverage to effectively focusing on growth—that are eye-opening yet pragmatic tools that can easily be put to work on Monday morning, and uses fascinating examples from business, nonprofit, and military affairs to bring its original and pragmatic ideas to life. The detailed examples range from Apple to General Motors, from the two Iraq wars to Afghanistan, from a small local market to Wal-Mart, from Nvidia to Silicon Graphics, from the Getty Trust to the Los Angeles Unified School District, from Cisco Systems to Paccar, and from Global Crossing to the 2007–08 financial crisis. Reflecting an astonishing grasp and integration of economics, finance, technology, history, and the brilliance and foibles of the human character, Good Strategy/Bad Strategy stems from Rumelt’s decades of digging beyond the superficial to address hard questions with honesty and integrity.




Strategic Focus


Book Description

Too often leaders just don't know where to start planning for the future of their business; they usually start with the familiar: internally, operationally and incrementally focused. This is the wrong place to start. From two decades-plus of leading successful custom consulting engagements for corporations, entrepreneurial business and non-profits, Cecilia Lynch, principal of Focused Momentum(r) and author of Strategic Focus: The Art of Strategic Thinking is finally making it easy to lead strategy development with confidence. Strategic Focus is your first step in preparing your strategic thinking about the future with clarity. This new book demystifies how to think strategically about your business to enable you to craft a winning strategy with the outside-in approach. This book will guide you through a series of exercises that create a simple, straight-forward process to form the premise for the future success of your enterprise. You too can lead truly stimulating and important conversations that will result in a significant evolution and in marketplace momentum for your company. By the time you are done with Strategic Focus: The Art of Strategic Thinking, you will be well-equipped and confident to facilitate strategy in your own business, with your team and/or with your board members.




The Ultimate Focus Strategy


Book Description

Discover 4 Steps to Permanently Eliminate Distractions and Focus on Your Goals in the Long-Term How do you feel about investing years of your life into achieving an important goal – your time, energy, money, blood, sweat, and tears – only to give up and throw it all away? If you constantly switch your attention from one thing to another, dabble in multiple projects, and give up on your goals whenever things get hard, you’ll eventually fail – absolutely guaranteed! Wouldn’t it be life-changing to finally be able to focus on your most important goals, work on them diligently on a daily basis, and make them a reality? Fortunately, even if you’ve been engaging in such unproductive behaviors ever since you can remember, you can escape this vicious cycle. Written by bestselling author Martin Meadows, The Ultimate Focus Strategy: How to Set the Right Goals, Develop Powerful Focus, Stick to the Process, and Achieve Success uncovers a powerful strategy that helped him overcome extreme shyness, get in shape in less than twelve months after years of negligence, launch a successful business after six years of failures, release several bestsellers, learn two foreign languages, dramatically reduce his fear of heights, and travel to exotic destinations. Here’s just a taste of what you’ll learn from the book: - How to make smart sacrifices to achieve your goals. Sacrifice is a must, but it doesn’t mean you have to throw your life out of balance. - How to set the right goals, transform them into real-world actions and motivate yourself to get started. Discover when and how to start working on your goals. - Learn how to overcome the common fears and problems of getting started, such as balancing several goals at once, overcoming a fear of failure and a fear of success (it’s more common than you think, and it might be one of the reasons why you struggle). - Discover a 4-step process that shows you how to develop deep focus on a single path. This is how ordinary people achieve extraordinary goals. - 7 powerful ways to overcome everyday distractions. Find out how to become focused, including how to recognize and avoid laziness triggers. - How to focus and take action when you’re not motivated. A lack of motivation doesn’t automatically mean you’re destined to fail. Learn how to overcome this common problem and keep trucking! - How to prioritize what to do and manage your to-do list. You’ll be surprised to hear such outrageous advice in a self-help work, but you’ll surely find yourself nodding as you read it. - 3 key areas of life you have to change to get fascinated with your goal. Developing a positive obsession about your objectives can make the difference between success and failure. - 5 powerful tips to stick to your resolutions despite hurdles and challenges, develop more patience, and bounce back after a failure. Learn how to persist, even in those challenging times when all you want to do is give up. - 3 golden rules for sustainable progress. Learn how to make the Ultimate Focus Strategy a part of your everyday life and achieve consistent results. - How to maintain success when you reach it. Discover the final lesson you absolutely need to heed, to stay successful for the rest of your life. Nothing prevents you from finally escaping the vicious cycle of working on your goals in an uncommitted way. Buy the book now, study the strategy, apply it, and reap the benefits for the rest of your life.







The 21-Day Positive Focus


Book Description