Prepare for bends in the road But know you can’t predict everything Todd Ordal “Management is prediction.” —W. Edwards Deming I used to live in the Twin Cities and drive back to western Minnesota where I grew up to visit family. My wife and I joked that once you got onto I-94, you could fall […]
The faster you move, the brighter they have to be Todd Ordal Author E.L. Doctorow once said: “Writing a novel is like driving a car at night. You can see only as far as your headlights, but you can make the whole trip that way.” This also describes running a business. You can only see […]
Moving forward for success Todd Ordal “If the rate of change on the outside exceeds the rate of change on the inside, the end is near.” —Jack Welch Although Welch’s statement is simply put, it’s a brilliant message that we too often ignore. There are many examples of this on the public stage. If you’re […]
Where will you compete, and why will you win? Todd Ordal “Why will people buy from you versus your competition?” I asked a CEO. He recently went through a “strategic planning” process, so the question seemed reasonable. He couldn’t answer it. Some of you reading this can’t either. More often than not, CEOs believe they […]
A friend expressed frustration with his company the other day. When I queried him about his frustration, he summed it up by saying that they had started to focus on “metrics over mission.” In this particular example, concern for improving the lives of their customers is starting to take a back seat to short term […]
Prayer recommended Todd Ordal A recent Wall Street Journal article highlighted the challenge J. C. Penney, Target and American Eagle are having in recruiting new CEOs. They are all large, well-paying, prestigious jobs. Why is this a problem? All three are experiencing significant declines. J. C. Penney recently fired its CEO, who had previously built the Apple […]
February, 2014 I’ve been asked several times whether there’s a logical progression in business strategy as a company ages. I’m talking about a company’s global strategy, the aligned set of actions to create a competitive advantage. I have no hard evidence that a sequential strategy shift is anywhere near universal, but I can tell you […]
Almost 2014 “Business is sure not what it used to be!” said a nonbusiness friend the other day. She was implying that it used to be less complicated, less global and, in her mind, have fewer scoundrels. She has, unfortunately, bought into the theme that business is evil and unpredictable. I replied that I didn’t […]
Disaster can happen quickly By Todd Ordal The recent plane crash in San Francisco brought the phrase “low and slow” into the public press. I’m not currently flying, but I used to spend many hours behind the yoke of a multiengine aircraft and have come close to that experience a few times. There are other apropos […]
You need a strategy before you can execute successfully There’s a saying that people pass around a lot like it came from King Solomon: “It’s all about the execution.” As if strategy doesn’t matter. But, of course, it does. Executing brilliantly on the wrong strategy only makes you fail faster. As Sun Tzu said in […]