Ten New Drivers

Andrew Penny, May 20 2025

In a recent Tuesday TUNE-UP, I talked about PESTLE analysis. The timing was uncanny. Because Canada just got a new Prime Minister: Mark Carney. And on day one, he laid out one of the most business-relevant political agendas we’ve seen in years. Here are 10 key drivers you need to

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OOh, DAt's a Useful Tool

Graham Birkenhead, May 13 2025

Back in the 1950s, US Air Force Colonel John Boyd was serving as a fighter pilot during the Korean War. His experience in fast-paced dogfighting led him to study decision-making under time pressure. He was especially interested in why American F-86 Sabres were more effective than the technically superior MiG-15s flown by North Korean and Chinese...

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PESTLE

Andrew Penny, May 6 2025

Every Strategist knows the acronym PESTLE. It helps us to consider the context in which any planned course of action would take place.  I encourage all leaders to put PESTLE into their strategic planning sessions. For those who don’t recall, PESTLE reminds us of the key areas to

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Early Birds, Second Mice, and a Dancing Guy

Graham Birkenhead, April 29 2025

In today’s unpredictable world, good leadership isn’t just about moving fast.  Instead, it’s about moving with judgment; it involves knowing when to lead from the front, and when to watch, learn, and move decisively at just the right moment. We all know the old saying:  “The early bird catches the worm”.  And in business, this has often been held...

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“If you can keep your head when all about you are losing theirs …”. *

Andrew Penny, April 22 2025

About 2500 years ago, 100km west of Shanghai, a young military scholar developed some unconventional ideas about strategy. He took the surprising step of documenting them in a book he called “The Art of War”.  Importantly for our SMB clients, his approach was very much that of the

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Please, not another post about Uncertainty!!

Graham Birkenhead, April 15 2025

I know, everyone is talking about uncertainty right now - again. And that’s understandable as there is plenty of it about: tariffs, shifting trade dynamics, economic turbulence, not to mention the various conflicts and environmental issues that have briefly moved out of the immediate media spotlight but haven't gone

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Services

Andrew Penny, April 8 2025

Almost every headline these days refers to tariffs and the chaos and reciprocity swirling around the world. In the midst of all this, we need to remember that the new tariffs ping-ponging back and forth are on ‘Goods’ – physical, manufactured stuff. If you are in the services business, the impact is indirect – i.e. your foreign clients may be...

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Do You Think What You Think You Think?

Graham Birkenhead, April 1 2025

Back in high-school, one of the many books we had to read and discuss was 1984.  Two of the questions we were posed concerned: 'what would have to happen for the world described in that book to come about', and 'what would have to be true for people in that world to not realise what was happening to them'; remember those 2 questions as you read...

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There's no Ghost in the Machine

Graham Birkenhead, March 25 2025

The phrase 'the Ghost in the Machine' has long fascinated me, and occasionally has me exploring philosophical rabbit holes as I try to make sense of it - and test it against real world situations. In short, the phrase ‘ghost in the machine’ was coined  by Gilbert Ryle - a British philosopher - in 1949. He was responding to the ideas of René...

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SEO is OVER

Andrew Penny, March 18 2025

Buyers are increasingly using AI to solve problems such as ‘How do I manage a sales funnel? How do I seal glass to aluminum? Where should I stay in Atlanta? They do this because they will get answers rather than a list of ‘sponsored’ web pages they could visit. And they typically get a prompt asking if they would like to know where they can buy...

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