Different Thinking

9 years, 1 month ago

Ask The Right Questions

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On any given week I am in a number of conversations with business leaders, business architects, or others who want to become business architects. They ask a lot of questions. And while all questions are good questions, some are better than others. Here are the two questions I get most often and what I think […]

9 years, 10 months ago

Think Different!

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 “If you do what you have always done, you’ll get what you have always gotten.” This quote is variously attributed to the self-improvement guru, Tony Robbins, Albert Einstein, Henry Ford, Mark Twain, and perhaps others. The fact that it is so often quoted points not to its truth but to its implication – we struggle […]

10 years ago

Tactical Thinking – The Good, the Bad, the Ugly

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Tactical thinking is characterized by making in-the-moment decisions without regard to the overall strategic plan. Most often, this occurs because demands of the day overwhelm the needs of the future requiring a temporary shift in prioritization. This happens in every organization on a daily basis. The key word here is “temporary”. A critical success factor […]

10 years, 4 days ago

Five Attributes of Strategic Thinkers

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In today’s agile, fast-twitch, act-fail-iterate environment, strategic thinking often gets a bad name. One entrepreneur friend of mine told me: “Strategic thinking is just an excuse to slack off.” If you are an internet startup, have  little revenue, and no profits, then keep iterating through tactical options until you succeed – or fail. For the […]

10 years, 5 months ago

Functional Decomposition Isn’t Functional Anymore

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Organizations today expect much more innovation from their employees than they did yesterday and will expect even more tomorrow. And not just technology innovation, but innovative products, services, processes, strategies, leadership styles, organizational designs, and more. This means that innovation isn’t just another function we can bolt on to our current role. It is a […]

10 years, 5 months ago

Should Shouldn’t Matter

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An overly large focus on the way things “should be” is one of the biggest inhibitors to innovation and productive action. A focus on what should be rather than what can be inhibits new ideas and siphons off a tremendous amount of energy. Though this is a problem throughout most organizations, it seems to be […]