Insights
Writing, occasionally
Essays published when there is something worth saying rather than on a schedule. Each one began as a conversation in a boardroom.
The library
All essays
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The strategy execution gap is a measurement problem
Companies measure whether the plan was written, not whether behaviour changed. Those are different questions, and only one of them matters.
Five questions a board should ask that most do not
Boards are good at asking what happened. They are considerably worse at asking what is not happening — and why nobody raised it.
Against the first hundred days
The convention pushes new chief executives to act before they understand. The bill arrives in year two, and it is usually large.
Elsewhere
Interviews & conversations
Longer-form discussion of the same ideas, with hosts who were willing to push back.
- PodcastWhy the bonus plan beats the strategy, every timeThe Boardroom Hour · 48 minListen
- InterviewThe case against the hundred-day planQuarterly review for directors · Print & onlineRead
- PanelGoverning through a CEO successionDirectors’ Institute Autumn Conference · 55 minWatch
Letters
New essays, by email
Roughly monthly, never more. 2,400 chairs, chief executives and directors read it.