NGOs come to the table with a social mission, whereas businesses inescapably have a commercial mission. The mistake is to view the two as mutually exclusive.
Willie Pietersen, “Strategic Learning” (Location 1150)
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Aaron Silvers
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Aaron Silvers
If you genuinely care about your customers, the insights will come. And if you don’t, well, forget it
Willie Pietersen, “Strategic Learning” (Location 1087) -
Aaron Silvers
The point is that table stakes are not easy. They are professionally very demanding for an audit company. But looked at through the eyes of the client, they are not enough. Once those needs have been satisfied, clients expect more. This was exactly the Maslow argument. If you don’t have food, shelter, oxygen (the bottom of the pyramid), then that’s all you will think about. But if you do have those basics, your needs will shift to the next level in the hierarchy.
Willie Pietersen, “Strategic Learning” (Location 1034) -
Aaron Silvers
As Henry Ford famously said, “If I had asked people what they wanted, they would have said ‘faster horses.’
Willie Pietersen, “Strategic Learning” (Location 1008) -
Aaron Silvers
The task of the Situation Analysis is to generate superior insights into the following five key areas of inquiry: • Customers and stakeholders • Competitors • Industry dynamics • The broader environment • The organization’s own realities
Willie Pietersen, “Strategic Learning” (Location 939) -
Aaron Silvers
Businesses fail most often because the assumptions on which the organization has been built and is being run no longer fit reality.
Willie Pietersen, “Strategic Learning” (Location 918) -
Aaron Silvers
“The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes but in having new eyes.” —Marcel Proust
Willie Pietersen, “Strategic Learning” (Location 912) -
Aaron Silvers
Do not look where you fell, but where you slipped.
Willie Pietersen, “Strategic Learning” (Location 876) -
Aaron Silvers
When the outcome of a total process is defective, we frequently fall into the trap of blaming the last step. We’ll say, “Oh, we’re bad at execution.” Deming was very good at pointing out that if the output wasn’t satisfactory, the problem might not be with execution. It could be with any of the preceding steps. Execution doesn’t have a life of its own. It’s a derived capability; it results from what came before it.
Willie Pietersen, “Strategic Learning” (Location 867) -
Aaron Silvers
Favorable variations are the ones that survive for a very simple reason: They have developed a competitive advantage in the competition for limited resources. The research is clear: If you smother your ability to sense and respond to changing conditions, if you stop adapting through the creation of favorable variations, you are doomed.
Willie Pietersen, “Strategic Learning” (Location 859)