The Strategy Skills Podcast: Strategy | Leadership | Critical Thinking | Problem-Solving

Welcome to Strategy Skills episode 493, an interview with the coauthor of the book Personalized: Customer Strategy in the Age of AI , Mark Abraham.    In this episode, we explore the rise of personalization through digital tools and AI, and how companies and organizations are leveraging it to build connections and engage with their customers. We discuss companies that excel in this area, such as S...

Welcome to Strategy Skills episode 492, an interview with the co-author of the book Personalized: Customer Strategy in the Age of AI , David C. Edelman. This book is a playbook for delivering true personalization at scale that will help executives learn how to put personalization at the center of their strategy and accelerate growth. BCG's Mark Abraham and HBS's David C. Edelman describe five prom...

Welcome to Strategy Skills episode 491, an interview with the author Directional Living: A Transformational Guide to Fulfillment in Work and Life , Megan Hellerer.    In this episode, Megan shares her experience as an executive at Google and how she realized the misalignment in her career path, which led to physical and mental health issues. She also discusses how she navigated through it by liste...

Welcome to Strategy Skills episode 490, featuring an interview with the author of Likeable Badass: How Women Get the Success They Deserve , Alison Fragale. In her book, Alison addresses the recurring questions from high powered and early career women alike: How do women thread the needle of kindness and competence in the workplace? How can women earn credit for their accomplishments, negotiate bet...

Welcome to Strategy Skills episode 489, featuring an interview with Mitch Warner, a bestselling author and Arbinger managing partner.    In this episode, we dive deep into the critical topic of self-deception and its profound impact on leadership and personal effectiveness. Mitch shares powerful insights on how self-deception can undermine our relationships and professional success, often without...

Welcome to Strategy Skills episode 488, featuring an interview with a seasoned business strategist and operator respected for his pivotal role in Amazon's early days, John Rossman. In John's book,  Think Like Amazon , he provides 50 ½ answers drawn from his experience as an Amazon executive―and shows today's business leaders how to think like Amazon, strategize like Bezos, and beat the competition...

For this episode, let's revisit a Strategy Skills classic from a 10 episode program to help our clients and customers measurably, radically transform their careers through The Author Program.   How would your career, reputation, and earnings change as a published author?   Imagine your client interactions when potential and current clients saw your thinking in a published book before they met you?...

For this episode, let's revisit a Strategy Skills classic from week 4 of the  Corporate Strategy & Transformation  study.   Promoting women into leadership roles is a hot topic and, sadly, a debate. Why is it a debate? What are the elements that require further analysis? To paraphrase Marvin Bower, one does not ask a client if a woman should take over the relationship, one simply tells a client a...

Welcome to Strategy Skills episode 485, featuring an interview with Richard Ruback and Royce Yudkoff, HBS professors and the hosts of ' Think Big, Buy Small ' podcast.    In this episode, we discuss current market trends related to entrepreneurship through acquisition. We also touch on the demographic trend of baby boomers retiring and needing to sell their businesses, and its impact on buying and...

For this episode, let's revisit a Strategy Skills classic where we discuss how your cost of capital changes as you take on more debt and how this change is different between organizations. It's a crucial concept for this utility. We explain how the cost of capital change usually takes place and then we review the drivers at play that are different for this power utility vs. an average company.   C...

For this episode, let's revisit a Strategy Skills classic where we use economics to explain what is the role of government, when governments should intervene, how they should intervene, and when they should hand over certain activities to the private sector. If you want to further your understanding of strategy at the highest possible level you should listen to this.   Here are some free gifts for...

Welcome to Strategy Skills episode 482, an interview with the author of Beyond the Hammer: A Fresh Approach to Leadership, Culture, and Building High Performance Teams , Brian Gottlieb. In his book, Brian shares his straightforward business ideology of having a clear strategy, inspiring teams, providing best-in-class training, using metrics for empowerment, and executing with consistency. Beyond t...

Welcome to Strategy Skills episode 481, an interview with the author of Lead Bigger: The Transformative Power of Inclusion , Anne Chow. In her book, Anne shows us how we can all learn to leverage inclusion far beyond DEI to elevate our work, workforce, and workplace. Lead Bigger offers a no-nonsense approach to leading outside of traditional parameters that challenges us all to "lead bigger" by se...

For this episode, let's revisit a Strategy Skills classic from the Corporate Strategy & Transformation study.   In this podcast, we look at the problem of superficial financial analysis. One way to save the client money, before they run out of cash in about 16 months, is to stop all investments which lose money. This, however, is a terrible idea that will cause enormous damage to the client's core...

Welcome to Strategy Skills episode 479, an interview with Marshall Goldsmith, a world-renowned executive coach and leadership thinker.   In this episode, Marshall offers invaluable advice for aspiring leaders and coaches, emphasizing the importance of maintaining an adult-to-adult relationship in coaching scenarios. His focus on measurable results has made him a trusted advisor to some of the worl...

Welcome to Strategy Skills episode 478, an interview with Ben Orlin, a math teacher turned full-time writer who's on a mission to make mathematics engaging and accessible to all and the author of the book Math for English Majors: A Human Take on the Universal Language.   In this episode, Ben offers insights into his teaching and writing journey, the challenges in teaching math, the unexpected succ...

Welcome to Strategy Skills episode 477, an interview with Hollywood insiders and the authors of Briefly Speaking , Deborah Shames and David Booth.   In this episode, we discuss effective communication and presentation strategies for individuals and business professionals. With their extensive experience coaching executives, celebrities, and leaders, Deborah and David share invaluable insights abou...

For this episode, let's revisit a Strategy Skills classic where we address how to answer difficult questions raised by the client during an executive workshop or another type of client's executive group meeting.   We start with discussing the right mindset any consultant requires to be able to effectively handle difficult questions from a client. We thereafter review the particular steps in addres...

Welcome to Strategy Skills episode 475, an interview with Dr. Sam Adeyemi (Ah Day yeh me), a global speaker, strategic leadership expert, minister, and author who has influenced millions of people on success and leadership through radio, television, conferences, and information products for more than 25 years.    Atlanta-based Dr. Sam Adeyemi leads leaders. He shifts mindsets to help leaders see p...

For this episode, let's revisit a Strategy Skills classic where we discuss how accurate our financial model for the market entry strategy study is.   Watch the video version here:   How accurate was our financial model for the market entry strategy study?   Here are some free gifts for you: Overall Approach Used in Well-Managed Strategy Studies free download:  www.firmsconsulting.com/OverallApproa...

Welcome to Strategy Skills, episode 473—an interview with Deborah Ancona, a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Sloan School of Management.   In this episode, we explore "family ghosts," a rarely discussed topic that significantly impacts professional growth, behavior, and attitudes toward work. We discuss how to achieve your greatest potential as a leader by recognizing your...

For this episode, let's revisit a Strategy Skills classic about the top-down view of energy. It is crucial to provide boundaries when discussing sector-wide issues or the executives may get lost in the details and miss the key levers.   Watch the video version here:   Top-Down View of Energy   Click  here  to see the full study and here to see the  merger study  and  market entry study.   Here are...

For this episode, let's revisit a Strategy Skills classic where we share one of our more in-depth episodes taken as a sample video from one of our strategy studies. This episode is complimentary and available on iTunes, Youtube, Spotify, and many other podcast players.   Watch the video version here:   How do I build the storyboard and why is it done so early?     Here are some free gifts for you:...

For this episode, let's revisit a Strategy Skills classic where we explain how leadership is defined at great firms like McKinsey and BCG, and how we also manage leadership transition at FC. It will surprise you to see how different the mindset can be and that we think about these issues all the time.   The most important role of a partner is to leave the firm in a better place than when she/he jo...

Let's be honest. Most consultants simply go into Google and search for any reports / analyses to compile market trends/an  industry analysis fact pack. In other words, they do not put much thought into it beyond ensuring they are not caught for plagiarism. This is because many consultants think of the market trends or industry analysis as an output to deliver, which will never be used, and it does...