Karl Edwards presents Working Matters

Tag: planning

  • Karl’s Library: Business Model Generation by Osterwalder and Pigneur

    Some books are as fun to read as they are helpful.

    Laid out visually, Business Model Generation: A Handbook for Visionaries, Game Changers, and Challengers by Alexander Osterwalder and Yves Pigneur is just such a treat.

    Instead of long, winding verbiage filled with technical jargon that no one (not even academics) understand, Business Model Generation stays grounded, simple, and practical.

    The book is divided into five sections that outline the process of business model generation:
    Canvas -> Patterns -> Design -> Strategy -> Process

    They offer nine helpful building blocks of a healthy business model:

    1. Customer segments
    2. Value Propositions
    3. Channels
    4. Customer Relationships
    5. Revenue Streams
    6. Key Resources
    7. Key Activities
    8. Key Partnerships
    9. Cost Structure 

    If it’s beginning to feel a bit overwhelming, you need to flip through a copy of the book itself.

    It is fun. It is visual. Brief, articulate explanations. Structured around the process itself.

    I think you will find it an empowering tool for you and your partners.

    Click here to see its Amazon.com page.

    Karl’s Library is a weekly column highlighting my favorites from my professional development library. “Always learning” is one of the pillars of my personal mission statement. Explore past columns here.

     

    If you’re a Kindle fan like I am, it is available for the Kindle.

    Don’t have a Kindle? Get one! You’ll love it.

  • Listen In -> Posture of Strategic Readiness with Van Wray #5: The Anticipated Decisions

    Of the universities to which your child is granted admittance, he or she will have to decide one to attend. It’s an important decision, and it cannot be avoided.

    Except that your child is currently twelve years old.

    It is not yet time to make that particular decision.

    Yet it would be a mistake to ignore or avoid the investigative and preparatory work involved in helping your child make the best decision possible when the time comes.

    In this week’s podcast discussion with Van Wray of Amperant Advisors, we look at how to best approach these certain but distant decision points in our businesses.

    Certain decision are coming.

    We know they are on the way, but we don’t have enough information to make the decision yet. We cannot afford, though, to ignore, forget about, or minimize their importance in the mean time. What do we do?

    Listen in.

    Just now joining the conversation? Catch up on the entire series here.

  • Listen In -> Posture of Strategic Readiness with Van Wray #3: The Sumo Wrestling Goals

    The sumo wrestler is not one of sport’s more attractive images.

    But today it is the perfect image.

    When considering meaningful sports analogies for strategic planning, we usually lean toward the agile and light of foot. Relay races, basketball teams, and even sedentary chess come to mind.

    We lean toward these images because they illustrate the aggressive, fast-paced, and/or savvy thinking that we want to characterize our planning efforts.

    For some issues, though, our goal may be to NOT go backwards.

    Have you considered that?

    In this week’s podcast discussion with special guest Van Wray of Amperant Advisors, we discuss the importance of being intentional about those areas where we don’t want to lose ground.

    Intentional to the point of articulating it an explicit goal.

    For what area of expertise, market penetration, financial position, etc. would it be an aggressive and vital goal NOT to go backwards?

    Wondering how to identify what sumo wrestling goals should be a part of your strategic planning?

    Listen in.

    Just now joining the conversation? Catch up on the entire series here.

  • Listen In -> Posture of Strategic Readiness with Van Wray #1: The Adjusting Process

    From the way many leaders approach strategic planning, you’d think they owned crystal balls.

    They seem to have confidence that the future is going to be exactly as they expect and make huge decisions and long-term commitments accordingly.

    Not so! argues our special guest, Van Wray of Amperant Advisors who joins us for a new podcast discussion series entitled “Posture of Strategic Readiness.”

    Wray asserts that strategic planning needs a serious rethink, and, over the next five weeks, will be resourcing us with the tools to do just that.

    The metaphor of physical posture is striking and powerful.

    I think of the tennis player poised on the balls of their feet ready both to execute their own strategy as well as react to whatever comes at them.

    If what comes at them is not what they expected, then they are ready to adjust… immediately (because they are prepared), instinctively (because they are trained), and, yes, strategically (because they never relinquish leadership of the game).

    In this week’s discussion Van and I confront the reality that the future is not nearly as clear cut as we’d like to think. The many unknowns that lie ahead, though, need not worry or stop us from making aggressive plans.

    We simply need to make a different sort of plans. Plans that have enough room in them to welcome the future. Plans that have enough flexibility in them to adjust along the way.

    You are going to want to meet Van Wray. He is an insightful, practical, and encouraging leader, coach, and ally.

    Join us over the next five weeks for what will be a transforming discussion.

    Posture of Strategic Readiness
    Week #1: The Adjusting Process
    Week #2: The Stop and No Lists
    Week #3: The Sumo Wrestling Goals
    Week #4: The Built-In Slack
    Week #5: The Anticipated Decisions 

    Listen in.

  • Loving Monday: Wind Down, Wind Up

    loving_mondaySummer comes to its official end with the commencement of the new school year.

    The season of swim lessons, out of town guests, and vacations (even if you didn’t take one) fades as a new cycle of plans, projects and intensity comes into focus.

    This cycle is a good thing. It doesn’t work to be intense all of the time. Energies need to be renewed, refreshed and restored. The relaxed space makes room for new ideas to germinate and hidden stale patterns to become visible.

    Alas, though, it is time to wind down from this season of rest and overlapping vacation schedules.

    Using the calendar to guide our own rhythms of planning, intensity and reflection can be of enormous help. Instead of re-creating the wheel every year, the calendar provides a pre-made structure around which to work. It provides an almost go-with-the-flow component the hard work of strategy, planning and focused effort.

    With school back in session, it is time to wind up. Gather the troops, set priorities, agree on deadlines and standards, and push forward with everything you all have in the way of passion and skill.

    It’s Monday. It’s the Fall season. It’s time to wind down from one season and wind up for the next.

    Loving Monday is a weekly column designed to encourage us to step into our weeks with an intention to show up authentically, engage fully, and choose to make it a good week for ourselves. Explore past columns here.

  • Thought Leaders Unpacked -> What the Dog Saw #14: Late Bloomers

    thought-leadersJust call me, “Cézanne.”

    Having enjoyed a multi-faceted career, I could easily buy into any of the many interpretations others have provided to make sense of the diversity of roles I have held through the years. Interpretations, that is, that come from a particular frame of reference that Malcolm Gladwell explores in this week’s chapter on “Late Bloomers.”

    What-the-Dog-SawMultiple roles could be a symptom of being lost. Unable to find my way, my calling, my destiny, I could be moving from role to role in search of something that feels like home.

    I could be a loser of sorts. Kidding myself into believing that I am God’s gift to humanity. I don’t see that my personality grates, my skills are archaic, and my working style is neither productive nor helpful.

    I could have my priorities mixed up. Preferring to inaugurate entirely new visions of capitalism for the 21st century, I neglect being a stable, domestic provider who makes sure that each week’s expenses corresponds with a particular paycheck that covers them.

    What if, though, I were exactly where I belonged during each stage of my professional journey so far? What if the only way forward is to take another step? What about uncharted territory where the path only becomes visible when looking back at where we have been?

    When experience is one of life’s teachers, then the knowledge, experience and connections needed to see which path to take can only be found in actually proceeding down a path. In the doing is the learning, the adjusting, the maturing.

    Gladwell’s insight into our culture’s fallacious assumption that genius comes early and easily is a breath of fresh air to those of us who experience the world so startlingly different that we struggle to find vocabulary, context and/or means to communicate, persuade and create all that burns deep within.

    This week’s chapter seemed written especially for me. Give it a read. It might be especially for you too.

    You never know. You or I may be the next, “Cézanne.”

    Join the conversation. What was your main take-away from this chapter?

    Each week I post my reflections from one chapter of What the Dog Saw by Malcolm Gladwell. If you are just joining the discussion now, welcome! Catch up on the entire series here.

  • Loving Tuesday: Where Did Monday Go?!

    loving_mondayWhere did Monday go?

    It was here a minute ago.

    Or so I thought. Next thing I know my calendar is telling me it’s Tuesday. What happened?

    Do you ever have weeks like that? You have the best of intentions. The plans are in place. You are going to hit the ground running. You are going in focused, intent, and prepared.

    And then reality hits.

    A scheduled delivery is missing. An important deadline gets moved up. An important client wants an impromptu meeting asap. Two team members call in sick.

    By the time you look up, the day is over and your beautiful plans are in shatters.

    It would not be uncommon to be thrown for a loop. Our focus turned to confusion. Our intent undermined by discouragement. Our preparations tossed into the air like a deck of playing cards.

    Or we can adjust.

    Key, though, is not letting the unexpected sabotage us completely.

    I recommend beginning by giving yourself permission to go outside and scream your heart out or pound your fist into the landscaping. Pretending you’re not frustrated when you clearly are is patently unproductive.

    Express your frustration (safely, please). Get it out. But then… shake it off.

    While probably not possible to merely start over as if it were Monday when it is now Tuesday, we can adjust.

    Determine to adjust.

    Take a fresh look at your focus, your intent and your plans. How can they benefit from what happened yesterday?

    It’s Tuesday now. Gotta love it. Time to go for it.

    What’s your alternative?

  • Question of the Week

    What specifically are you intending to accomplish over the next thirty days?

    The Question of the Week is offered to increase awareness of one’s personal leadership practices and encourage experimentation with creative alternatives.

  • Question of the Week

    What new information do you have that has not yet been communicated to someone that needs it?

    The Question of the Week is offered to increase awareness of one’s personal leadership practices and encourage experimentation with creative alternatives.