Resources for Starting a Business

Ultimate Business Planning Guide with Updated Resources

Complete Business Planning Guide with Extensive Resources Copyright Carter McNamara, MBA, PhD. NOTE: Your business plan should be highly customized to your current organizational situation. Thus, using a generic business plan template could completely misrepresent the needed focus of your business plan. (This step-by-step manual is a complement to the topic How to Start Your …

Learn Strategic Thinking from Napoleon

Biographers of Napoleon Bonaparte talk about his ability to size up a situation with a single coup d’oeil,(pronounced koo-DOY), meaning “a stroke of the eye” or “glance.” Napoleon was so knowledgeable about his strategic situation—the landscape, the enemy, available technology, similar situations from the past—that he could understand and respond quickly to ever- changing circumstances. …

Strategic Planning Facilitator: Guiding the Planning Process

Strategic Planning: The Crucial Role of a Facilitator The goal of strategic planning should be to produce a Plan that is 1) relevant, realistic, and flexible; 2) with a very high likelihood of being implemented; 3) in order to achieve the purpose of the planning, e.g., a purpose to evolve to the next stage of …

Mistakes Made by Strategic Planning Facilitators

Here’s a list of the biggest mistakes that I have seen made by strategic planning facilitators over the years: 1. Not getting sufficiently trained on how to do facilitating, e.g., planning the meeting, goals, ground rules, which techniques to cultivate complete participation, doing interventions, managing conflict 2. Not learning a variety of strategic planning models, …

Strategic Thinking in the Age of LinkedIn

LinkedIn founder and triple billionaire Reid Hoffman has two endearing mannerisms that reveal the way he sees–and reasons with–the strategic environment. First, he peppers his statements with the word so. Almost a verbal tic that would grate on a speaking coach like the overuse of the dreaded uh … but he uses it more like …

Avoid the Silicon Valley Syndrome!

Guest blog from my colleague, Adam Brock, Director of Social Enterprise at Joining Vision and Action (formerly JVA Consulting): How can a well-meaning startup avoid “Silicon Valley Syndrome” and actually use a social startup to create real value for society? Every era has an industry that epitomizes its values. At the turn of the 20th …

Develop Your Strategic Intuition

The best decision-makers in chaotic “fog of war” conditions seem able to call on intuition – knowing what to do without knowing why or how they know.

Free Online Program to Learn Strategic Planning Facilitation

Moneyball: The Role of the Chief Strategy Officer

Paul DePodesta – role of the  Chief Strategy Officer for the Cleveland BrownsPaul DePodesta was recently named the Chief Strategy Officer by the Cleveland Browns of the National Football League. This is significant because, as any fan of Moneyball knows, Mr. DePodesta has spent his career in the sport of baseball, not football. This matters …

50 Tips and Tools for Effective Strategic Thinking Skills

To engage in strategic thought, you must think and reflect on the big picture—on the diverse players and forces in your competitive environment. Anticipate the future. Use your right brain for intuition and wisdom, and your left for planning. As Isaac Newton said, “Truth is the offspring of silence and meditation.” Here are 50 tips …

To Learn Strategy, Know History

When you are faced with the most important and strategic decision of your life, where can you go for wisdom? Can you find insight in a book of history? Facing a world in crisis, John F. Kennedy did just that. Generally, we learn skills by trying something, failing, and trying again until we get it …

Execution Trumps Strategy

The results are in – Execution trumps strategy. Your business plan may have great strategies, but it will be a great failure if executed poorly. So just hire the right people, right? Turns out the answer is not what you think. At least according to a recent Harvard Business Review Article. Five Myths About Effective …

Is Balance Possible?

Now here’s a frank perspective: Balance doesn’t work. So don’t even try. Accept the fact that the only way to really make something happen is to go “full out” at it, with everything you have.

B Corp As A Competitive Edge?

Last week, I attended a celebration for B corps in Colorado. These are for-profit companies certified by a nonprofit called B Lab for achieving social and environmental goals along with business ones. What I noticed differently from other discussions among B Corps in the past, was a stronger focus not only on this vibrant community …

Effective Planning: Mission Statement and Goal Brainstorming

It still seems common that many facilitators start strategic planning by having planners attend first to the wording on the mission statement, and soon after to start brainstorming strategic goals. While that approach often can be done in a half-day or full-day of fun and creative “planning,” it has many drawbacks. Here’s a list of …