Are you tactical or strategic? Research shows that it’s the difference between bankruptcy and a Kevlar competitive advantage.
In a world where bad strategy is the leading cause of business failure, and only one out of every four leaders are truly strategic, strategic fitness is the meta-skill of elite executives.
On Strategic Minds, you’ll journey with New York Times & Wall Street Journal bestselling author Rich Horwath into conversations with extraordinary leaders and world-class experts to learn new ways to think, plan, and act strategically. You’ll discover game-changing insights, tips, and techniques to turbocharge your performance and position you as a true difference-maker in your arena.
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How do you identify and seize opportunities for disruption? In this episode, Rich sits down with Jed Ayres, CEO of ControlUp, a company that helps IT resolve issues faster, prevent tickets, and reduce spending. Jed is widely recognized for the transformational impact he is making on the end user computing industry. He and Rich discuss innovation, creative thinking and the importance of storytelling in leadership.
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Key Quotes:
“I'm a firm believer that story is the root to all greatness in the world. And I think about some of the greatest tech companies, they had leaders that were great storytellers.”
“If you can visualize something in your mind's eye and you can put the right plan underneath it, nothing is impossible.”
“What I've found in my career is that the real disruptive innovation typically comes from within really creative people that are able to have the wingspan to get into a dark room and think differently. And they feel like they're in a safe place to come up with new ideas that are radical.”
“Your network is your net worth.”
Practice Makes Profit segment: How to use a threat matrix.
The League of Strategic Minds segment [listener question]: What is competitive advantage?
Winsight: Idea for Advantage segment: Winston Churchill said, “To each there comes in their lifetime a special moment, when they are figuratively tapped on the shoulder and offered the chance to do a very special thing, unique to them and fitted to their talents. What a tragedy if that moment finds them unprepared or unqualified for that which could have been their finest hour.” Are you continuing to develop your expertise and skills to be your best so you too can realize your finest hour?
How can you leverage the principles of physics to grow your business? In this episode, Rich sits down with Bob Rogers, CEO of Oii.ai and a PhD in physics who studied supermassive black holes. They discuss how Bob’s background as a scientist informs how he thinks about business, how to know when to pivot in a startup, and how cross-pollinating ideas from different domains leads to innovation for customers and patent-worthy ideas.
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Key Quotes:
“It’s literally just finding the right level of granularity and detail to tell your story effectively. And that's a physics concept, but it's also a storytelling concept, and it's a business concept for me.”
“I've seen a couple of organizations just, we're putting AI into this, this, this, and this. And it's like, ooh, it's a huge mistake. Because you really want to think of it as just another tool. It’s not like, oh, let's go hammer everything and see what happens, you wouldn't do that just because you got a new hammer, right?”
“The main thing is, every single person in your organization has patents inside them. That's the starting point. Start with that mindset. Everybody has patents inside them.”
“Here's the tricky thing about the pivot. When you're building a business, a bullseye is a two dimensional object, like X axis and Y axis. But in business, it's a multidimensional space. So you're pivoting two degrees in an unknown direction. You've got to figure out the orientation and the angle, which is why it's not simple.”
Practice Makes Profit segment: How to use a prioritization matrix.
The League of Strategic Minds segment [listener question]: What is the difference between strategic thinking and strategic planning?
Winsight: Idea for Advantage segment: Gary Kasparov, the world chess champion from 1985 to 200, said, “What separates a winner from a loser at the grandmaster level is a willingness to do the unthinkable. A brilliant strategy is certainly a matter of intelligence, but intelligence without audacity is not enough. You must have the guts to explode the game, to upend your opponent's thinking, and in doing so, unnerve them.” What are you doing to explode the game in your field? What are you doing? That's innovative. That's different. And that's going to upend your opponent's thinking.
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Constructing Creative Strategy
Episode 5
Tuesday, August 6, 2024 • Duration 50:31
How do you find creative and original ideas? When you do, how do you continue to find them consistently over a long period of time? How do you transform them into strategies that create competitive advantage?
In this episode, Rich sits down with Bradley Hartmann, CEO of Bradley Hartmann & Co. Bradley has consistently put unique products into the construction industry, innovating within a more traditional industry to great success. He and Rich discuss the process of creativity, using virtual mentors, scheduling time for serendipity and testing the validity behind creative strategies.
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Key Quotes:
“How do I apply my best energy to my best thinking, to my best opportunity?”
“Good coaches can make a mockery of the 10,000 hour rule.”
“I do have a lot of ideas. I have no idea which ones are good or which ones are bad. Some are a little bit more easy to identify in that spectrum. What I try to do is say, Is there a small way we can advance this with a limited Amount of time with a limited budget to see if this resonates.”
Practice Makes Profit segment: How and why you should do a a visual assessment of your business situation.
The League of Strategic Minds segment [listener question]: What's the biggest mistake leaders make when it comes to strategy?
Winsight: Idea for Advantage segment: David Mamet, Pulitzer-Prize-winning playwright, said, “It's very difficult to fix something that's been done badly. You'd better do your thinking and planning up front when you have the time. It's like working with glue. When it sets, you've used up your time.” How much time each week are you and your team dedicating to thinking and planning for your business?
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Time stamps:
(01:04) Deep Dive Interview with Bradley Hartmann
(44:49) Practice Makes Profit
(47:34) League of Strategic Minds
(49:25) Winsights, Ideas for Advantage
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CEO as Architect of the Future
Episode 4
Tuesday, July 23, 2024 • Duration 52:21
How does a leader evolve the business and their role for future time horizons? In this episode, Rich sits down with Assaf Resnick, CEO of BigPanda. Assaf’s journey is anything but conventional—transitioning from venture capitalist at Sequoia Capital to founding a successful software company. He shares invaluable insights on fostering a first-team culture, maintaining differentiation in a competitive market, and mastering strategy iteration for long-term success.
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Key Quotes:
“I've got a framework for my job description around people, strategy, execution, and cash which are four big buckets that you need to all be in good shape in order to succeed.”
“Every six months or so, I sit down and I re-architect my CEO job description.I sit down and I start with a blank sheet of paper and I ask myself, Alright, what kind of CEO does this company need me to be right now? What was I doing that I don't need to be doing anymore? What do I need to start doing? And what does that mean for me in terms of, are there any skill gaps that I need to bridge? Are there any behavior gaps that I need to bridge? Are there any knowledge gaps that I need to bridge?”
“When you get to a certain scale, you've really got to start thinking in 3 year horizons. When you start getting near $100 million business and above, that ship moves a little slower. And so you've really got to start layering on 3 year visions of where's the market going, how am I capitalized, what are the big bets I'm making. And then you have to think about how do you operationalize that strategy? How do you make sure that everyone in your company is really, really clear about where we're headed as a company and what does that mean for my team and for me personally. That's a lot of work.”
“I want to make sure that it's really, really thoughtful and it's been prepared with all the stakeholders in mind. I do prefer that strategy is done in iteration. That's very important for me. So don't go into your cave and come back in two months and present to me and the executive staff. Here is my vision from Mount Olympus, because it could be all wrong. I'd rather someone come and create and make it an iterative process with myself and the stakeholders involved.”
“You need to be really, really clear about your foundational differentiators. You need to be really, really clear about what is it that I'm doing that is fundamentally different from anything anyone else can get in the market. And that could be in your technology, that could be in your services. That could be in your go to market and you have to be really, really honest with yourself. Do I have meaningful differentiation and is that leading to really good outcomes? And if you don't, you have to go on a spiritual journey to figure out what is my vision to produce that significant differentiation?”
Time stamps:
Strategic Leadership Shaped by a Service Mindset
Episode 3
Tuesday, July 9, 2024 • Duration 53:07
What does it take to lead organizations through change and innovation? In this episode, Rich sits down with Christie Tarantino-Dean, CEO of Institute of Food Technologists (IFT). With over 30 years of experience in association management, Christie has also served as President and CEO of the Association Forum of Chicagoland and Executive Director of the Academy of General Dentistry. She shares insights on the importance of relationships and offers valuable lessons for leaders aiming to innovate and create lasting value.
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Key Quotes:
“I do think because people that I've seen either that I've worked with or that I've known professionally that focus so much on the next thing, they may miss those opportunities to learn, so they're prepared for the next thing. I see a lot of people who moved to the next thing, and then they're on the bigger stage. And they're hit with a moment where they have no background or experience and they don't know how to manage through that. And it can be really detrimental to their career moving forward. So I'm a big believer in not focusing two and three steps ahead.”
“I've actually started blocking a whole week a quarter to be able to think more. I'm always thinking about the future, but really having dedicated uninterrupted time to think.”
“If you're not upsetting about 20 percent of your membership, you're probably not doing enough to advance the organization into the future.”
“We've worked on constructive dissent, people saying what they really think in the meeting and being comfortable with that so that we don't have the, “Well, I knew that was gonna be a bad idea,”, later on. But at the end of the day, someone has to own it and you're not going to get everybody 100%--maybe you can get 80% of the way there and then you can assess whether it was the right decision and, and adjust along the way.”
“At the end of the day, it is impossible to make everybody happy. And so we try to focus on the good of the whole and really understanding how we can have the biggest impact and that is focusing what we do.”
“Stepping in not to step over, but to support the team.”
“Reaching our vision and mission as an organization means we need to continually change and evolve in order to serve. And if we really want to make that impact, the status quo is going to move you along that road to irrelevance really quickly.”
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Blank Page to Billions: How an “Ideas Guy” Strategizes
Episode 2
Tuesday, June 25, 2024 • Duration 53:21
How do you identify and develop the ideas that generate a multi-billion-dollar business using strategic thinking? In this episode, Rich sits down with Bill Harris, former CEO of TurboTax, PayPal and Intuit, and current founder of Evergreen Money. Bill is a prolific founder and “ideas guy” who has spent 30 years building and leading companies at the intersection of investing, tax and technology. Bill shares his framework for startup strategy, his advice for interacting with the board, and the competitive advantage of starting with nothing.
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Key Quotes:
“The two most important words in my life are purpose and curiosity, and it's a flare and focus function.”
“What was important in order to change my life that way was to admit to myself that there were things that I was not good at, and some of those things that I was not good at were central to my understanding of myself.”
“If you're going to start a business…, it better be new, different, and better.”
“That is my competitive advantage. I have nothing. And having nothing in a period of rapidly accelerating change is an incredible strategic advantage if you know what to do with it.”
“I have been blessed by being pretty deep in financial technology, but always being able to find the next vertical or the next use case where I had not done it before. I could see enough into the process to understand what might be done and how it could be improved. Then with inspiration, you start to focus on it and hone the idea.”
“If you're in trouble, then you have the opportunity to really change the business, the basic foundation and DNA of a corporation.”
“..starting young companies–going zero to one–strategy, is really product strategy. We're thinking of putting a product together and then how do we go to market and who's our customer base and what are their needs and what is our business model?”
“I'm talking from my own perspective, which is a startup. You can never focus enough. You can never shave off enough bells and whistles. You can never identify your customer sharply enough. You can never focus your efforts of yourself and your company enough. You have to pick the single most important thing and get it to the single best segment of people who will appreciate it.”
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Gold-Medal-Winning Strategy
Episode 1
Tuesday, June 11, 2024 • Duration 54:07
How does a winning Olympic coach approach strategy? In this episode, Rich sits down with Hugh McCutcheon, the Assistant Athletics Director and Sport Development Coach at the University of Minnesota. Hugh coached the US Men’s Volleyball team to the gold medal at the 2008 Olympic games, then coached the US Women’s volleyball team to the silver medal at the 2012 Olympic games. He shares his thoughts on coaching, competition, practice, and team-building.
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Key Quotes:
“As a coach and a leader, we're a service provider. The service we're providing is helping the people who are investing the most precious resource they have, their lives, in our endeavor. We're trying to help them to achieve this goal. And that's a significant responsibility.”
“I've got nothing wrong with tradition, right? But tradition should only be the right reason for doing anything when it's the right reason. We shouldn't just keep doing stuff just because that's the way we've always done it. We should be basing our stuff in best practice methods.”
“There's not just a physical element to the moment of competition, but there's a mental one, and even a social component that goes on in competition. And the mental is not just about performance and executing. It's also about emotional control, which, by the way, is not emotional suppression. We all have emotions. It's creating a space between the emotion and the action.”
Practice Makes Profit
At it’s foundation, a plan should answer two questions: What are you trying to achieve?
How will you achieve it?
To answer these questions clearly and consistently I developed the GOST Framework, which stands for goals, objectives, strategies and tactics. Goals and objectives answer the “What” question—goal is generally what you are trying to achieve and objectives are specifically what you are trying to achieve. Strategy and tactics answer the “How” question—strategy is generally how you will reach the goal and tactics are specifically how you will reach the goal.
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Strategic Minds Trailer
Tuesday, May 28, 2024 • Duration 01:29
Are you tactical or strategic?
Research shows that this distinction is the difference between failure and a Kevlar competitive advantage.
In a world where bad strategy is the leading cause of bankruptcy – and only one out of every four leaders is truly strategic – strategic fitness is the meta-skill of elite executives.
Welcome to Strategic Minds, the podcast that explores how some of the greatest thinkers, leaders, and achievers use a strategic approach to excel in their fields.
I’m your host, Rich Horwath, New York Times and Wall Street Journal bestselling author of 8 books including, STRATEGIC, and I’ll be your guide as we do a deep dive into conversations with extraordinary leaders and world-class experts to learn new ways to think, plan, and act strategically.
You’ll discover game-changing insights, tips, and techniques to turbocharge your strategic leadership performance and position you as a true difference-maker in your arena.
Welcome to Strategic Minds.
Transforming Complexity Into Clarity
Episode 8
Tuesday, September 17, 2024 • Duration 49:24
How do you navigate all of the challenges that come with running a business and transform them into actionable insights that drive continued success? In this episode, Rich sits down with Alex Atzberger, CEO at Optimizely, a digital experience platform that helps more than 10,000 businesses orchestrate their entire content lifecycle, monetize digital experiences and experiment across all customer touchpoints. He and Rich discuss the principles for successful M&A strategies, the qualities of high-performing leaders, and simplifying big ideas.
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Key Quotes:
“It's important on your notepad or whatever you use to keep notes not to try to write down 50 different things, but really focus on the three big ideas. You need to be able to write them on crayons on a piece of paper…And that can really transform companies because most good businesses and so on were not built on, like, long, complex books or something. They were based on simple, sharp ideas. And that's really, for me, insight that moves companies.”
“All these statistics about companies’ M&A being so poor and companies failing on this and that, it just is, in my point of view, where people might have just outsourced some of the thinking to other people rather than really owning it. “
“If you go into the building, and you see a snake in the hallway, what do you do? Now, there's two possible reactions. One reaction is that you see the snake, and you run into a conference room, and you get ten people on a call, and you say, like, hey, I need to talk to you about the snake that's in the hallway, what should I do? That's one option. The other option is you just kill the snake when you see it.”
Practice Makes Profit segment: How to use the 3A Strategic Thinking Framework to think, plan, and act strategically every day.
The League of Strategic Minds segment [listener question]: How should a business describe its purpose?
Winsight: Idea for Advantage segment: A. G. Lafley, former CEO of Procter & Gamble said, “There simply is no one perfect strategy that will last for all time. There are multiple ways to win in almost any industry. That's why building up strategic thinking capability within your company is so vital.” What are you and your team doing to develop your strategic thinking capability so that you can continue to evolve your business model for long term success?
Time stamps:
Think Big, Move Fast, and Own the Outcome
Episode 9
Tuesday, October 1, 2024 • Duration 49:03
How can you drive disruptive innovation and gain competitive advantage in a highly-regulated industry?
In this episode, Rich sits down with Dennis Devine, President and CEO of Alliant Credit Union, one of the largest and fastest-growing credit unions in the United States. Dennis explores how to design differentiated strategies that disrupt industry norms, build a member-centric culture, leverage data for innovation, and form strategic partnerships. He also shares how he thinks in three time horizons and ensures that every leader on the team is an effective risk manager.
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Key Quotes:
“Almost no organization is big enough to try to be everything to everyone, and as soon as you try to do that, and you're unwilling to make those trade-offs, you lose the opportunity to be distinctive in the areas that you can be distinctive.”
“There's no value in just looking busy and just doing the busy work. There is value in having the big idea or leading the significant effort.”
“It's important that every leader in a high-performing organization, I think, be a risk manager and think that's part of their role.”
Practice Makes Profit: Using the strategic fitness system as a way for leaders to practice the skills that are fundamental to success.
League of Strategic Minds [listener question]: Is SWOT analysis still a valuable strategic planning framework?
Winsights: Ideas for Advantage: “Michael Porter, Professor at Harvard Business School, wrote, “There is no best auto company. There is no best car. You're competing to be unique. Consider your people, their competencies, capabilities, and company offerings. What's unique and are you leveraging those areas of uniqueness into competitive advantage?”
Practice Makes Profit: Why differentiation is crucial to beat your competition and how to confirm your core of differentiation using the Differentiation Detector tool.
League of Strategic Minds [listener question] What does it mean to be strategic, and how can I tell if a person really is strategic?
Winsights: Ideas for Advantage
Sam Palmisano, former CEO of IBM said, “The holy grail of strategic thinking is how do you come up with a business model that differentiates you, creates value for your customers, and puts you in a unique position in your industry?”
When was the last time you and your team discussed how to best evolve your business model for the future?
“I think the strongest teams come out of moments of crisis where everybody is supportive and steps up. And it's maybe not their job, but they're there to help each other.”
Practice Makes Profit: How to use SWOT analysis correctly to be a valuable planning tool
League of Strategic Minds [listener question] How can I explain the difference between strategy and tactics to my team?
Winsights: Ideas for Advantage
Jim Barksdale, former CEO of Netscape Communications said, “In the fight between the bear and the alligator, the outcome is determined by the terrain. Each animal presents a fearsome figure on its own turf, but the bear will flounder in a swamp, while the alligator surrenders many of its advantages when forced to fight on dry land. In a battle where the two are evenly matched, the victory will go to the one fighting on home terrain.”
What terrain is most advantageous for you, for your team, for your product and service offerings, and how can you move your competitor into that terrain more often?
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(01:07) Deep Dive Interview with Christie Tarantino-Dean
“The biggest failure is when management feels that it has to go to boards with all the questions answered.”
“If it's a highly fragmented market, or if you are a new player doing something different, which just means that you're going to be tiny in relation to everybody else who's out there, competition is meaningless.”
Practice Makes Profit segment: A key criterion of strategy is the trade-off. A trade-off is made when you focus on one area and intentionally exclude others. A method for practicing trade-offs is to use a Trade-off Matrix. Consider where you and your team allocate your resources—time, talent, people, budget—and then evaluate your current tasks, initiatives, meetings, etc. and determine if they should be placed in one of four quadrants: Eliminate, Decrease, Increase, or Create. As Reed Hastings, CEO of Netflix said, “If you are not genuinely pained by the risk involved in your strategic choices, then it’s not much of a strategy.”
The League of Strategic Minds segment [listener question]: What are the primary steps in developing a strategic plan? There are five steps in the strategy development process: 1) Discovery 2) Strategic Thinking 3) Strategic Planning 4) Strategy Rollout 5) Strategy Tune-up
Winsight: Idea for Advantage segment: Richard Branson, billionaire founder of the Virgin Group said: “The number one thing I take with me is a notebook. I could never have built the Virgin Group into the size it is without those few bits of paper. If you have a thought and don’t write it down, by tomorrow morning, it may be gone forever.”
Where are you recording your insights each day and how often are you going back to review them?
Objective: Retain 90% of high performers (those rated 4s & 5s) through Q4 of this year.
Strategy: Significantly differentiate bonus compensation based on performance.
Tactics: Create a bonus comparison chart and share with teams; Design a quarterly performance scorecard;
Communicate top performers’ results.
League of Strategic Minds
Question: How often should we be looking at our strategy and making changes?
Answer: Use a Strategy Tune-up on a quarterly basis consisting of a 2-4 hour review of the current business situation and calibrate goals, objectives, strategies, and tactics accordingly.
Winsights: Ideas for Advantage
Carl von Clausewitz, Prussian General and renowned military strategist wrote: “There is no higher and simpler law of strategy than that of keeping one's forces concentrated.”
Where is the single most important area for you and your team to focus your resources?
(44:43) Practice Makes Profit: Applying the Three A Strategic Framework
(45:55) League of Strategic Minds: How should a business describe its purpose?
(47:48) Winsights, Ideas for Advantage: A.G. Lafley, former CEO of Procter & Gamble, said, “There simply is no one perfect strategy that will last for all time.There are multiple ways to win in almost any industry. That's why building up strategic thinking capability within your company is so vital.” What are you and your team doing to develop your strategic thinking capability so that you can continue to evolve your business model? For long-term success.
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