"Strategy" is a word that attracts a lot of excitement in the business world. People who work on strategy get paid more and senior executives like to use the word a lot to talk about their decisions. In consulting, I worked with many companies helping them to develop strategies. Although these were often focused on different levels of the business and different topics, all of the "strategies" were similar. They each included: A synthesis of all of the relevant information about a company...
12 days ago • 3 min read
Consulting, at its core, is a series of steps: defining the problem, gathering data, analyzing, synthesizing, and making recommendations. Countless frameworks such as DMAIC, the scientific method, and the McKinsey 7-step problem-solving process, exist to guide you through those steps. But what separates truly high-performing consulting firms from the rest? It’s not just the process; it’s the “meta-process”: the ongoing reflection on, and improvement of, how the process is carried out. Elite...
19 days ago • 2 min read
You're receiving this StrategyU weekly newsletter after signing up for our free mini-course. If you'd only like to receive select deals & promotions, or want to unsubscribe, you can change your preferences here. Hey there, You've likely sat through many bad presentations. But why are they bad? Surely these people don't intend to torture you. Over the last year, I've been coaching business leaders on presentation and storytelling skills. I've worked with them on pitch decks, board...
26 days ago • 3 min read
In my years in strategy consulting, I’ve seen how data can be shaped to fit a preferred narrative. Often, it’s done with good intentions—teams are motivated to please their clients—but sometimes it can slip into a gray area. We’re witnessing more frequent misuse of these tactics outside of consulting, as politicians or influencers craft numbers to confirm their own beliefs rather than aiming to serve an audience’s best interests. This makes it increasingly difficult for people to see through...
about 1 month ago • 1 min read
In 1976 the founder of Boston Consulting Group, Bruce Henderson published a strategy memo with a bold claim: “A stable competitive market never has more than three significant competitors, the largest of which has no more than four times the market share of the smallest.” Despite this provocative statement, Henderson quickly clarified that it was a hypothesis: The Rule of Three and Four is a hypothesis. It is not subject to rigorous proof. It does seem to match well observable facts in fields...
about 1 month ago • 2 min read
One of the challenges I've faced with teaching the skills in Think Like A Strategy Consultant is that the best way to learn them is by getting intensive feedback from others either learning these skills or who are good at applying them in their work. Many of the students taking the course are doing so independently. My average student is in a big company or consulting firm and is frustrated with their organization's lack of support and training. Despite that, they want to get better at these...
4 months ago • 2 min read
In 2015, Facebook released information showing that its users were far more engaged with video content than any other kind of media. This sent ripples through the entire media ecosystem. Suddenly every company was talking about "pivot to video." Companies like Vice and Buzzfeed laid off writers and started producing more videos. The problem? The Facebook data wasn't real. Facebook shared inflated data and avoided owning up to it for several years. I have some sympathy for the companies that...
5 months ago • 1 min read
I love breaking down interesting charts. One of my favorite resources to help you make sense of charts is McKinsey’s Chart of the Day. Each day, they share a chart on a newsworthy topic, providing the perfect opportunity to practice. Here's a recent one on the global women's health gap: In our workshops, we like to teach people to think about charts using the 10-second test. Look at the chart above. Time yourself, 10 seconds. Can you understand it? If not, maybe it could be better. Here's a...
6 months ago • 1 min read
Time management isn’t about frantically ticking tasks off a to-do list. It’s about maximizing your productivity and effectiveness while maintaining your well-being (although some of my former managers disagreed about this last part :-)) When I think about time management, I think about the three 3 Ps: Prioritize - figure out what matters Plan ahead - figured out when to do it and execute Productively - figure out how to efficiently and effectively do it Prioritization tactics: The Eisonhower...
6 months ago • 1 min read
