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Business observers have been telling us, for what seems like time immortal, that it’s a “dynamic world”, or that “business is more fast-paced than ever”, or that “you snooze you lose”. The list goes on. There are so many such protestations we might easily become numb to them. Clichéd they may be, but they are also true (!) as the examples in this week’s article prove.
One of the recent phenomena that is driving this is the internet, and more specifically, social media. It’s been reported that before TV it took 58 years to reach a market audience of 50m. TV reduced this to 13 years. With social media, the figure today is estimated at 2 years. If an incident goes “viral”, it can reduce to a matter of days! Susan Boyle anyone?
This is all very well and good, you might say, but what are the implications to us? From a Critical (and Strategic) Thinking perspective there are many, but the one I’ve decided to focus on this week is what I refer to as the “Growth Factor”. No … this isn’t some mysterious drug! It’s an essential ingredient to the thinking required to properly assess the situations we face. Read more in The Critical Thinker #6 - If You Want To Grow, Don't Forget The Growth Factor!
On a separate note, due to the upcoming holiday seasons, we’ll be taking a short break from blog writing duties. We will resume again directly after Chinese New Year, on Friday, 15th February, 2010.
Have a wonderful festive season and best wishes for the New Year,
David Wilkins, Andrew Sng, Alice Goh and the Team at DPI Asia.
Asia is one place where more people follow football (soccer for those of you Americans out there) than any other sport. Strikers are the players that bring both audiences in stadiums and homes alike to their feet. If you have noticed, there is, in my view, a key trait that separates the so-so strikers from the great ones. Great strikers run to where the ball is going to be.
Business leaders are no different. You want to ensure that you prepare and position your organization to take advantage of what the future business arena is going to be. This calls for the mindset and ability to proactively deal with the future. But you say, “How can anyone anticipate what the future will look like? The future is a big place, and no one has a crystal ball.” In fact, this reaction is understandable, yet our premise has a very simple and rational explanation. It has been shown that many things that look big and complex at first glance turn out to be an assembly of a limited number of smaller elements with a limited range of variables when scrutinized more closely.
In reality, the future business arena (or "sandbox," as we at DPI refer to it) in which any company will compete down the road consists of 12 discrete compartments from which disruptive trends, or indications of the future, might emerge. Read on and find out what they are . . . Learn to envision the future . . . Or risk becoming a dinosaur!
Read more in The Strategic Thinker #5 - Strategize For The Future Not The Present
To learn more about our Strategic Thinking Process, visit the Strategic Thinking section of DPI Asia's website.
Such is the action-orientation of the world these days that a hot topic of debate in our workshops is how to get the right balance between clarity and action. It seems to me that most of us have an inclination towards one or the other.
I worked well with a former boss because we equalized each other; most of the time anyway! By nature, I am a “reflective” type who would first seek out clarity, whereas my boss was infamous for his habit of walking into any meeting and, regardless of his familiarity with the topic, sit down, listen for about 30 seconds and then ask: “So, what are you going to do about it?” He’s easily the most action-oriented person I’ve worked with and it wasn’t uncommon for me to have to deal with the trail of destruction he left behind!
What’s the message? Obviously, clarity is critically important for success. After all, we wouldn’t plunge into a river without first seeing if any crocodiles or piranhas were lurking; take too long, however, and the lion chasing us from behind would have eaten us for lunch!
In this week’s article, I share some tips on how to gain rapid clarity so we can take decisive actions that deliver progress not just motion.
Go on, take the plunge to read Issue #5 of The Critical Thinker … no piranhas here, I promise!
To learn more about our day-to-day Critical Thinking processes, visit the Situation Management section of DPI Asia's website.
“It’s easy to develop a strategy; it’s the implementation that’s difficult”.
How often have you heard this statement? You might even have uttered it yourself!
Our experience globally shows the exact opposite to be true. If a CEO or entrepreneur thinks that he or she has a solid strategy, and yet it is not being implemented, there can only be one of two things happening:
1. The management team doesn’t know or understand the strategy. (It is very difficult to implement a secret strategy!)
2. If the strategy is understood but still not being implemented, it is because some members of the management team don’t agree with it and may, in fact, be trying to sabotage it.
Our view is that there are 10 deadly sins that an organization can commit that will inevitably lead to these two conditions – and eventually to corporate extinction. Read on to find out ... ‘The 10 Deadly Sins That Lead To Strategic Malaise’.
Are you responsible for organizing a Strategic Meeting and want to ensure you avoid the 10 deadly sins? Visit DPI Asia's website to learn more or contact us.
Love them or hate them, meetings are an essential part of corporate and social life. Meetings are when important issues are debated and decisions made. It's at meetings when the process of winning or losing begins. Sadly, a lot of meetings lack the focus, direction and effectiveness they require.
Why is this the case? What is it that we, as meeting organizers and participants, have not been doing that has contributed to this rather sorry state of affairs?
Fortunately, basic common sense, and good critical thinking, can be applied to dramatically enhance the effectiveness of your meetings.
To learn more, read this week’s The Critical Thinker article on ‘meetings’.
To aid the quality of day-to-day decision-making in your organization, learn more about our Situation Management framework and processes at DPI Asia's website.
This is the period when most companies have their annual “retreat”. The worst economic crisis in 70 years may have put paid to the desire to go away to somewhere secluded and scintillating. It does not change the need, however, to come up back with that tangible evidence of work put in – variously called the “strategic plan”, the “new strategy”, the “work plan”, the “new vision-mission statement”.
Whatever it may be called, many of these are modifications or extrapolations of last year’s output. They are “adequate” to see us through another year. It is seldom, if ever, a re-think of what is needed to win in the ever-changing landscape that confronts a business these days. Strategy to us is not about “adequacy”, it is about SUPREMACY . . . And there is a process of thinking to get you well on the road to achieving it.
Read this week’s article, ‘Supremacy is not a Dirty Word’.
To learn more about our process, visit the Strategic Thinking Process section of DPI Asia's website.
Perhaps it is because I am an English man living in Singapore, but I often sense that participants to my workshops feel that I’m a stickler for good English just because I am, well, English! It is true that I am sensitive to the quality of the English used, but it’s not because I have a hidden desire to be an English teacher. Nor am I a purist when it comes to grammar. In fact, I can speak Singlish – the local English dialect – as well as the next man (and over the Mahjong table to boot!)
No. The reality is that there is a direct link between the words we say or write and the thinking that’s going on in our heads, or not gone on as the case may be. Our words reflect our thought process. Muddled and unclear words indicate muddled and unclear thinking.
Worse still, even if we are good thinkers, we may be perceived as the opposite if the words we use to express ourselves are found in general, unspecific statements. Like many things in business, this is, of course, common sense after the fact.
So … to enhance our own ability to think clearly and critically, and to ensure we are perceived as doing so by those that count around us, such as customers, bosses etc., we must avoid “motherhood and apple pie” and get straight to the point. Talking of which, read more in the complete The Critical Thinker Issue #3.
To learn more about our day-to-day Critical Thinking processes, visit the Situation Management section of DPI Asia's website.
Like most senior executives, you are putting in over 60 hours at work each week. How much of these 60-plus hours are spent on strategic – as opposed to operational – issues? Research has found that senior executives like yourself spend less than 10% of a 60-hour week on strategic matters. Hardly enough, especially in these challenging times. And we wonder why many of us consistently get caught off guard by “unpredictable” and sudden events – a certain legislation got passed “overnight”, a competitor has teamed up with another firm and introduced a disruptive business model, an significant client decided to take his business to the competitor across the road, the list goes on . . .
When was the last time you sat your management team members down, gave each one of them a clean sheet of paper, and insisted that they wrote down – in 2 or 3 paragraphs – where you were taking the business? If you haven’t done that before, we’d suggest that you do it soon . . . You might be in for a shocking discovery!
What are we getting at? Simply that there are several obstacles to strategic thinking in organizations that are totally in the hands of seniors executives. Read on by clicking reading our full article here.
It may be the best first step to achieving supremacy in your sandbox!
Visit the Strategic Thinking Process section of DPI Asia's website here.
Ever had an “annoying” boss who would ask difficult questions?
- When you have a problem you go to them for help; after all, they’ve “been there done that” so should have a ready-made answer for you, but you don’t get “the answer” you expect, just one or two cutting questions that you know will make you think and work harder!
- When you make a presentation, they see through the glitzy animation and have that irritating habit of asking the question(s) that make you feel like the rabbit in the proverbial headlights!
I did. His name was Lingham. He drove me mad! It was only later that I realized he was doing me a favour. Why so?
Questions are the only mechanism available to us to make people think. And, that includes ourselves! Critical Thinking and Questioning Skills are different sides of the same coin. So, I suppose, Lingham played a part in the Critical Thinking journey I am still experiencing.
What about you? Do you want to know how to pre-empt your “annoying” boss? Are you curious about how to become that “annoying” boss? Oops, those pesky questions again! Well, you’ll need to equip yourself with the right questions to ask. Read more in The Critical Thinker Issue #2. It’s available for download here.
The word strategy and its many derivatives – top level strategy, corporate strategy, strategy map, strategic objectives, strategic leverage, strategic project - are “music” to many a business person’s ears. Savvy managers frequently use some of these, and other “strategic” terms, to get past a stubborn PA when they might not otherwise have been able to! The reality, however, is that the word strategy means different things to different people. Reflect on the following statements:
• “My strategy is to be the No. 1 in my chosen segment. The tactics that I will pursue are ...”
• “My goal is to be the No. 1 in my chosen market segment. The strategy that I will pursue is ...”
The word strategy is used in two entirely opposite senses. Most of us have witnessed or experienced the “fun” of a discussion on strategy when the parties involved have different perceptions of the word strategy. We can hear the wheels spinning now!
Besides, there is a tendency among the overwhelming majority to equate strategy with strategic planning. “An off-site strategy meeting” usually means “An off-site strategic planning meeting”.
But ... Strategic Planning does not Strategic Thinking maketh! Read this article on ‘What Is Strategic Thinking?’ to learn more...
As a recognized “Leader in Critical Thinking” we are often asked: What is Critical Thinking? What makes it different from “normal” thinking? Why bother with it? Can it be learnt?
Interesting and provoking questions indeed!
The last question is the easiest to answer – as our 29 years of hands-on experience has conclusively demonstrated, everyone can learn to be a better thinker. And to deliver better results in the process. However, a complete answer to all these questions will require exposure to the various Critical Thinking Processes that DPI continues to develop and deploy with our clients. These processes will be subject of future posts and related articles. Stay tuned!
Meanwhile, we suggest you download and read this article – What Is Critical Thinking? – that uses an everyday analogy to begin to answer the all important questions posed above. Take this as an opportunity to reflect on your existing abilities and thought-processes. To “open up” your mind to the more in-depth articles that will follow. Happy Reading!
To be fair, it's not quite up there with giving birth for real, but here it is: DPI Asia's blog is finally a reality!
Our hope is that this blog becomes a relevant and insightful focal point for YOU - executives, managers, and entrepreneurs - who believe, like we do, that effective Critical Thinking is at the heart of every successful individual and organization.
What's the difference between "critical" thinking and "ordinary" thinking? Well, we're afraid, you'll just need to subscribe to find out!
Every two weeks, on a Friday afternoon, we will release a new "pure & simple" post on the topic. Our measure? It must be able to fit on a single PC screen! Where necessary, we will complement our entries with more extensive articles available for download from our website at www.dpi-asia.com.
Whether it's about key Strategic Thinking principles that help our clients achieve supremacy in their respective sandboxes, examples of how our clients continually apply Strategic Innovation to outpace their competitors, or day-to-day concepts that will help you practice better Situation Management to enhance your overall effectiveness, we hope to provoke and engage you in a manner that offers practical and tangible benefits to you and your business.
Don't forget to subscribe if you wish to receive our entries via email!
With Best Wishes,
Andrew Sng, David Wilkins, Our Associates & Support Team at DPI Asia
