Strategic Thinking & Strategic Action

Fostering strategic thinking and strategic action by organizational leaders since 2007.

Are you getting your share?
Strategy Lee Crumbaugh Strategy Lee Crumbaugh

Are you getting your share?

If you are a fan of the television show Shark Tank, where wanna-be and true entrepreneurs make pitches for funding, you know the trap that some of the presenters fall into. Here’s how it might go.

Read More
Know who you are up against!
Strategy Lee Crumbaugh Strategy Lee Crumbaugh

Know who you are up against!

Part of understanding where your organization is headed is to identify with whom you are competing and will compete in the future. Competitors are a critical class of external actors. They shape the markets your organization serves. Their actions will affect your and contribute to the threats and opportunities that you face.

Your planning process needs to address your competition. Responding to, anticipating, and even surprising your competition are ripe considerations when you are developing strategies to get you to your goals and vision of great success.

A useful way to consider competitors is the degree to which they affect or can affect your organization, and to look at the degree to which your organization affects or can affect them. Competitors high on either measure, and especially on both measures, are important for both opportunistic and defensive reasons.

Read More
What to do when disaster ensues
Strategic thinking Lee Crumbaugh Strategic thinking Lee Crumbaugh

What to do when disaster ensues

If we ever needed a reminder that this is a VUCA world - a strategists’ term meaning “volatile, unpredictable, chaotic, and ambiguous” - the current state of affairs in the USA’s capital city is it. Agencies, jobs, careers, funding, and polices are all being disrupted

Yet, despite the scale of the “volatile, unpredictable, chaotic, and ambiguous” change affecting the federal government and those associated with and depending on it, unexpected big change and its affects is hardly a new phenomenon.

Just as I did during the COVID-19 Pandemic, I feel compelled to offer up what I know as a strategist, researcher on decision making. planner, and business coach about how to function in and even succeed in a VUCA world, be it induced by COVID, Trump administration actions, LA wildfires, New Orleans shootings, DC plane crash, war, business failure, or otherwise.

Read More
Be better than the competition
Strategy Lee Crumbaugh Strategy Lee Crumbaugh

Be better than the competition

It’s a tough world out there! It’s likely, whether you recognize it or not, that you are in a cutthroat marketplace where some competitors resort to unethical tactics to gain an edge – lying, cheating, or even jeopardizing safety.

The side of business involving fierce competition is the “Red Ocean,” a concept popularized by W. Chan Kim and Renée Mauborgne in their book "Blue Ocean Strategy," published in 2005. “Red Ocean” is a metaphor for the "bloody" competition inherent in crowded markets, where businesses fiercely battle for market share.

This seemingly dystopian nightmare scenario is playing out in many markets today, involving large corporations and local businesses. From Volkswagen's emissions scandal to strip clubs blacklisting dancers, tales of "bad" competition expose the damaging consequences of unethical practices.

The good news? You don't have to compromise your integrity to succeed. You can thrive like the most sustainable businesses by being better, not worse, than your rivals.

Read More
Pick the best: Don’t let the bad drive out the good
Coaching Lee Crumbaugh Coaching Lee Crumbaugh

Pick the best: Don’t let the bad drive out the good

It may be the same with every industry. Likely the sham artists and hucksters and skimmers and those just in it for the buck are pervasive. We all see them and have to deal with them (or try to ignore them).

I know that in business coaching, there are those who purport to be serious business coaches but aren’t. There are those who call life coaching or motivational coaching or something other than business coaching “business coaching.” There are those whose coaching credentials are hollow, missing, or misrepresented, who don’t know net margin from a fishing net.

Read More
California High Speed Rail to nowhere: Lessons for implementing our plans
Strategic planning Lee Crumbaugh Strategic planning Lee Crumbaugh

California High Speed Rail to nowhere: Lessons for implementing our plans

A New Year has befallen us, ready or not. Hopefully, you are ready. That is, you - and your organization, if you are a business owner or for-profit or non-profit leader - have a plan in place for the New Year.

Now your challenge it to execute your plan for greater success. Execution, or, as we strategists call it, plan implementation, should be your mantra.

Execution, or better said, lack of it, is where it all falls apart. While the exact percentage is unclear, it’s safe to say that more than half and up to three quarters of plans are either poorly executed or not executed at all. That’s shame! A plan which is not executed is worthless.

Achieving timely and effective plan implementation is critical to success.

To bring the point home, reflect on this true tale that illustrates the perils of poor planning and, especially, poor execution.

Read More
Why New Year’s resolutions fail: The problem of implementation
Strategic planning Lee Crumbaugh Strategic planning Lee Crumbaugh

Why New Year’s resolutions fail: The problem of implementation

Yesterday, New Year’s resolutions came to mind as I was writing year-end reports to my coaching clients.

A blog post on goal-setting and achievement that I wrote earlier this year, Don’t waste your time planning, unless…, cited research showing that 92% of people who make New Year’s resolutions never actually achieve them. While I recognize that what we resolve to achieve in the New Year can be a casual goal without a lot of commitment behind it, to me it seems silly to put a marker out there and then ignore it or only half-heartedly go after it.

Read More
Are you ready to bat?
Strategic planning Lee Crumbaugh Strategic planning Lee Crumbaugh

Are you ready to bat?

Just as a batter needs to constantly monitor and process all these variables to make good decisions at the plate, as an organizational leader or business professional you should be keenly aware of what’s going on around you when you step up to bat. For businesses, this process is environmental scanning - which these days involves doing a deep dive on the internet and using AI to identify trends and forecasts that offer ideas on how you might proceed in the future.

Environmental scanning is critical, because the environment in which we all are operating is dynamic. Every day brings change – new opportunities and new challenges.

Read More
Rise of the poker pros: 10 lessons for great success
Decision making Lee Crumbaugh Decision making Lee Crumbaugh

Rise of the poker pros: 10 lessons for great success

Is life a poker game? Or, perhaps better stated, to what extent does playing poker teach us about living the best life?

If you have read recent books by Nate Silver (The Art of Risking Everything), Maria Konnikova (The Biggest Bluff: How I Learned to Pay Attention, Master Myself, and Win), and Annie Duke (Quit: The Power of Knowing When to Walk Away), all one-time professional poker players, you likely will be convinced that poker is a useful simulation of real life, albeit under controlled conditions (that is, a set of rules). The cool thing about Silver, Konnikova , and Duke is that they are much more that poker pros.

Read More
Drift and big change challenge our success
Strategic planning Lee Crumbaugh Strategic planning Lee Crumbaugh

Drift and big change challenge our success

Every once in a while we stumble across a seemingly profound thought, the “aha!” moment when we see things in a new way, a concept or approach that helps organize, clarify, and make sense out of what we are seeing or experiencing. One of these “aha!” moments in my life as a strategist has led to deep and useful insights that I suggest anyone planning for future success will be wise to consider.

Read More
Get real when you plan!
Strategic planning Lee Crumbaugh Strategic planning Lee Crumbaugh

Get real when you plan!

Rather live and plan under the delusion that you know what your situation and prospects are, why not turn to a time-tested method for making sure your strategic plan will be reality based? That time-tested approach is to do a SWOT (strengths, weaknesses, threats, and opportunities) analysis.

Read More
Your pricing says it all… But what does it say?
Strategy Lee Crumbaugh Strategy Lee Crumbaugh

Your pricing says it all… But what does it say?

If your business is typical of many that I work with, your customer list is a collection of those customers who fit your ideal client avatar and those who don’t. The ones who don’t deliver you enough revenue, or who resist paying a higher, more realistic price, or who are a pain to serve likely are in your customer portfolio because of one of two reasons: Either when you started out you didn’t really know who you wanted or were best equipped to serve. Or you took them on because you needed revenue and customers and you felt that you could not be picky. (Anyone breathing who offered you money looked great!)

Sound familiar?

The fundamental concept to get your head around if your customer base does not align with the ideal customer you are seeking is that of price positioning.

Read More
We are people, not transactions
Strategy Lee Crumbaugh Strategy Lee Crumbaugh

We are people, not transactions

A client who runs a marketing agency and I have been having an ongoing conversation about establishing the best client relationships. The gist of our discussions has centered on the “old way” of selling versus the “new way” of selling.

Simply, the old way is pushy and presumptive: The client sits on one side of the desk and the seller sits on the other side of the desk. The focus of the seller is on the transaction that he or she is trying to make happen.

The new way is questioning, problem-solving, and consultative: The client and the seller both sit on the same side of the desk, figuring out the best solution for the potential client. The focus of the seller is on the relationship with the potential client.

Read More
Is excellence - or failure - ahead? Answer five questions to know
Strategy Lee Crumbaugh Strategy Lee Crumbaugh

Is excellence - or failure - ahead? Answer five questions to know

We all would prefer to be involved with a business that is excellent rather than one that is in shambles, heading for failure. As a strategist who has worked on improving businesses of all stripes over five decades, I am happy to offer my prescription of what to focus on to take a business to the next level, to move toward excellence, rather than toward mediocracy or even failure. I propose asking five overarching questions as part of an organizational assessment.

Read More
Bridge the strategy gap
Strategic planning Lee Crumbaugh Strategic planning Lee Crumbaugh

Bridge the strategy gap

With the recent collapse of the Francis Scott Key Bridge in nearby Baltimore, bridges are on my mind.

Given my romance with epic bridges, it is no surprise that I have often likened creating a strategic plan to building a bridge to the future.

I have used the bridge analogy for years. As president of the Association for Strategic Planning (now the International Association for Strategy Professionals), more than a decade ago I started my quest to bridge what I (and others) called “the strategy gap.”

Read More
What do your customers expect?
Strategy Lee Crumbaugh Strategy Lee Crumbaugh

What do your customers expect?

Targeting markets and customers/clients is an essential element of a strategic vision. But deciding who to serve is not enough. Knowing and addressing what the target market/customers/clients expect from the organization (or anyone aiming to serve them) is essential.

You need to determine targeted customer/client expectations.

Read More
Desirable difficulties
Strategic thinking Lee Crumbaugh Strategic thinking Lee Crumbaugh

Desirable difficulties

Too often I see organizations and leaders take the easy road, the worn path, the usual course, going with the flow. The organizations and leaders I work with should not expect me to endorse that approach to business (or life). There is a direct line between difficulty and achievement, whether for athletes or business people. The easy road is almost never that direct line (ignoring the element of luck).

Read More
Coaching and change
Coaching Lee Crumbaugh Coaching Lee Crumbaugh

Coaching and change

My fellow coaches and I use the Pygmalion Effect, not as a trick but as a valuable tool, by seeing the best in and expecting the best from our clients, building them up so they can excel at whatever they want and need to be good at and at progressing toward their loftier goals.

Simply, by expecting the best behaviors, we are more likely to see the best outcomes. Rise and shine!

Read More
Business model question: Produce or provide?
Strategic thinking Lee Crumbaugh Strategic thinking Lee Crumbaugh

Business model question: Produce or provide?

When designing (or redesigning) how the organization works, consider the question of production versus provision. The organization’s underlying business model is designed to deliver products or services to customers, to create and capture value. But there is no reason that the starting assumption should be that the organization is the entity that creates the services that it delivers.

Read More