Strategy

Market Strategy

2026: Shift Gears and Move Forward

Andrew Penny, January 6 2026

Back in December, I asked you to think about your big priorities for 2026 - the ones that matter, the ones that keep getting pushed down the list. Now here we are.  First full week of the year. Clean calendar. Blank page. Green light. For a lot of CEOs we work with, the answer isn’t new ideas.  It’s old ones - important initiatives that have been...

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Market Strategy

Big Ambitions for 2026? Let’s Make Them Real

Andrew Penny, December 23 2025

'Twas the week before Christmas, and all through the land,CEOs were regrouping, strategy in hand.They'd dodged rising tariffs and tech that moved fast,Now wondering which plans would actually last… It’s that time of year! The pace slows. The calendar clears. And somewhere between the last meeting and the first glass of eggnog, your mind drifts...

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Leadership & Management

Finishing Matters - The Discipline of Closure

Graham Birkenhead, December 16 2025

When you watch people running in a race, you’ll often see them slow down just before they get to the finish line. Elite athletes train to overcome this natural tendency, but there have been many instances of people losing the race simply because they finished too early - or thought they had. We cringe because we could see that the line was right...

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Leadership & Management

Feeling the Drift?

Graham Birkenhead, November 25 2025

We like to think that our projects, habits, and teams are organised and orderly and move in ways that are under our control. We set off with a clear purpose, a defined goal, and a reasonable plan to get us there. And then … real life happens. People learn new things, contexts shift, and the tidy line of attack becomes more of a gentle curve....

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Leadership & Management

The Half-life of Attention

Graham Birkenhead, November 18 2025

There’s a pattern I've seen regularly in organisations; you may have seen it too. Something serious happens, perhaps a missed deadline, a customer complaint, or a system failure, and everyone dives into it with real urgency. Meetings are called. Charts appear. People engage.  And we have one of those 'we can’t let this happen again'

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Leadership & Management

The Pause as a Strategic Tool

Graham Birkenhead, November 11 2025

A situation that we have probably all experienced is when a problem lands on our desk and the immediate instinct is to fix it. Quickly. There’s a kind of felt need to act, to decide, to move. As someone once joked: “We’re paid to do, not to think” - and this is embedded in many or our workplace

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Market Strategy

Most Go To Market Problems Don’t Start in Sales and Marketing

Andrew Penny, October 7 2025

I taught skiing on weekends for almost 40 years and one of the most powerful skills I developed was what is called ‘Detection and Correction”.  It’s the skill of identifying the symptom and then determining the root cause. Inexperienced instructors can spot the symptom—but rarely identify the root cause. A student may be skiing without flexing...

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Leadership & Management

How do you Choose your Queue?

Graham Birkenhead, September 30 2025

We’ve all done it, arrived at the supermarket checkout, desperate to get out as fast as possible, only to be faced with the need to make a decision about which line to join.  And, you have to decide quickly; hesitate too long and someone else jumps in, changing the whole dynamic.  I don’t know about you, but almost without fail, I pick the wrong...

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Leadership & Management

Are They Really Out to Get Me?

Graham Birkenhead, September 16 2025

“Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by neglect, ignorance, or incompetence.” — Hanlon’s Razor

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Leadership & Management

A Tall, and Taller, Story

Graham Birkenhead, September 2 2025

For as long as I’ve owned a house, I’ve had a ladder. They’re one of those things you don’t really think about - until you need one. Mine was the sort that could be used as a step-ladder or converted to a longer ladder, and in my little suburban house, it did everything I

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