Strategic thinking

I recently had a presentation on strategic thinking to a group of 20 "high potentials" from one of the leading insurance companies in Poland. The group takes part in a series of trainings and as a part of "creative thinking workshop" I was asked to talk about strategic thinking. This very unusual. I have always been asked to either introduce or lead a workshop on strategic planning or strategic management. Strategic thinking is, in my opinion, much more fundamental and should involve every person in a success-driven organization. Some of the aspects of strategic thinking include: holistic approach (distance from operational problems, systems and process thinking, awareness of mega-trends etc.), outside perspective, creative thinking etc. I also talked about four areas of knowledge: Known known, Known unknown, Unknown known, Unknown unknown.

5,127 attempts down the road

While listening to Tom Kelley of IDEO on one of the podcast by Stanford University's Entrepreneurship Corner I was struck by a couple of great examples of not giving up easily.

1. Rocket Chemical Company and its staff of three that attempted to get water displacing formula worked out. Have you ever wondered what the name of widely used water-displacing spray WD-40 stands for? Well, WD is water displacement, but the 40 stands for 40th formula. We are talking about 39 formulas that failed...

2. James Dyson, self-made billionaires, is well known as the inventor of the bagless vacuum cleaner. What very few people know is how many attempts he made until he perfected the Dual Cyclone vacuum. In his book Against the Odds: An Autobiography James Dyson talks about 5 years and 5,127 prototypes he produced before the vacuum cleaner became an over-night success.

Better late than never

Welcome to my attempt at blogging. I know I am a way behind most people that discovered blogging a long time ago, but since it's better late than never...

The plan is to write about changing world, entrepreneurship, leadership, strategy and other topics that may be of interest to people involved in business or NGOs in leadership positions or those that feel being led to leadership positions…

I may talk about other topics of interest to leaders and entrepreneurs - hope you will find them interesting, maybe inspiring and sometimes challenging...