13 Posts found for Author: Paul Leinwand

Stepping into a chief executive role for the first time is exhilarating. But the reality of leading an organization hits differently when you’re actually in the seat. In an article for Harvard Business Review, Paul Griggs and Paul Leinwand outline four foundational areas and pivotal questions that can guide new leaders through their critical first 100 days.

Content: Article | Authors: Paul Griggs, Paul Leinwand | Source: PwC | Subject: Corporate Governance

Companies often fail to address the tough questions about strategy and execution: Are we really clear, as a leadership team, about how we choose to create value in the marketplace? Can we articulate the few things the organization needs to do better than anyone else in order to deliver on that value proposition? Are we investing in those areas, and do they fit with most … [ Read more ]

Content: Article | Author: Paul Leinwand | Source: Harvard Business Review | Subject: Strategy

The identity of a successful company aligns three basic elements: a value proposition (how this company distinguishes itself from others in delivering value to customers); a system of distinctive capabilities that enable the company to deliver on this value proposition; and a chosen portfolio of products and services that all make use of those capabilities.

Content: Quotation | Authors: Cesare R. Mainardi, Paul Leinwand | Source: strategy+business | Subjects: Business Rules, Management, Strategy

When you can’t find a way to translate the strategic into the everyday, you have to rely on your existing functions to achieve your strategic goals. […] You risk becoming a company that perennially promises great things but never seems able to deliver.

Content: Quotation | Authors: Cesare R. Mainardi, Paul Leinwand | Source: strategy+business | Subjects: Management, Strategy

When you don’t commit to an identity, you risk becoming scattered among a variety of objectives. […] You gain a right to play in many markets, but a right to win in none.

Content: Quotation | Authors: Cesare R. Mainardi, Paul Leinwand | Source: strategy+business | Subjects: Management, Strategy

The functional model of organizations is an important reason why so many companies struggle with the gap between strategy and execution. It makes a company good at many things, but great at nothing. When functional boundaries prevail, there is no construct for managing capabilities. It isn’t clear who owns the capabilities, how to track spending on them, or how to connect them to the strategy … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Authors: Cesare R. Mainardi, Paul Leinwand | Source: Harvard Business Review | Subjects: Management, Organizational Behavior

The most farsighted enterprises have mastered five unconventional practices for building and using distinctive capabilities.

Editor’s Note: Perhaps it’s just me, but these capabilities don’t seem particularly unconventional. They are also like many secrets-to-success studies in that they look good on paper, but offer little in the way of practical recommendations for realizing them. And, you have the ever-present correlation-causation problem. At the least, it … [ Read more ]

Content: Article | Authors: Cesare R. Mainardi, Paul Leinwand | Source: strategy+business | Subjects: Best Practices, Management, Strategy

Many of today’s business leaders, when planning for growth, admit to lacking a clear view of how to achieve their aspirations, and they say they are distracted by a wealth of potential opportunities.

Content: Article | Authors: Gerald Adolph, Paul Leinwand | Source: Chief Executive | Subjects: Management, Strategy

Most companies don’t pass the coherence test because they pay too much attention to external positioning and not enough to internal capabilities. They succumb to intense pressure for top-line growth and chase business in markets where they don’t have the capabilities to sustain success. Their growth emanates not from the core but from the acquisition of apparent “adjacencies” that are often anything but and the … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Authors: Cesare R. Mainardi, Paul Leinwand | Source: strategy+business | Subjects: Management, Strategy

The pressure to grow the top line is so intense that most companies pay too much attention to expansion and not enough to building differentiated capabilities. A few companies start from the opposite direction: they figure out what they’re really good at, then develop those capabilities (three to six at most) until they’re best-in-class and interlocking. For them, strategy becomes a matter of aligning what … [ Read more ]

Content: Article | Authors: Cesare R. Mainardi, Paul Leinwand | Source: strategy+business | Subjects: Management, Strategy

The road to sustained success begins with the answer to this simple question: “Who are we?”

Content: Article | Authors: Ken Favaro, Nadia Kubis, Paul Leinwand | Source: strategy+business | Subject: Strategy

Conventional wisdom on strategy is no longer a reliable guide. The authors maintain that success in any market accrues to firms with coherence: a tight match between their strategic direction and the capabilities that make them unique.

Achieving this clarity takes a sharpness of focus that only exceptional companies have mastered. This book helps you identify your firm’s blend of strategic direction and distinctive capabilities that … [ Read more ]

Content: Book | Authors: Cesare R. Mainardi, Paul Leinwand | Subject: Strategy

To reduce expenses for the long term and lead the way to recovery, start by taking a strategic view of your company’s capabilities. In the economic crisis, many companies defaulted to standard downturn defenses such as across-the-board cost cutting and layoffs. These responses weaken companies as they shrink. Here is a way to make your company leaner and more resilient now, and more robust as … [ Read more ]

Content: Article | Authors: Cesare R. Mainardi, Paul Leinwand, Shumeet Banerji | Source: strategy+business | Subject: Management