Strategy as Living Architecture
Strategy Built Around Contribution: The Order Most Plans Get Backwards
A few years back I sat in on a strategy session for a company that had recently adopted the Balanced Scorecard. They were proud of the move, and rightly so – they had gone looking for a way out of single-gauge, quarter-to-quarter thinking, and here was a framework with four perspectives instead of one. Financial,…
Read MoreThe Energy Pathways Your Org Chart Doesn’t Map
A few weeks ago, I went to an acupuncturist for something called De Quervain’s tenosynovitis, which was basically causing pain in my thumb, wrist and forearm. (Fun fact: it’s also called ‘mommy’s wrist’ since it often comes from picking up children, and my habit of hoisting my three young grandchildren is exactly how it started…
Read MoreExecutive Team Performance: What Your Team Doesn’t Know About Each Other Is the Key to Strategy That Actually Works
The planning session went well. You could tell by the energy in the room – the conversation was lively, people engaged with the frameworks, and by the end of the day, you had something that looked like alignment, at least on the whiteboard. Your senior leaders left the retreat with clear priorities, a shared understanding…
Read MoreThe Strategy Design Gap Behind Execution Failure: Four Questions to Answer
There is a particular kind of frustration that most CEOs recognize immediately when they encounter it in themselves, even if they cannot name it right away. It is the frustration of watching a strategy they believe in fail to take hold – not dramatically, not all at once, but gradually, the way heat leaves a…
Read MoreYour Strategy Signals What You Believe About Your Organization: Setting Strategic Leadership Expectations
In 1963, two researchers conducted a now-famous experiment in a California elementary school. Robert Rosenthal and Lenore Jacobson told teachers that a group of students had been identified — through rigorous testing — as having exceptional potential for academic growth. The researchers predicted these students would show dramatic intellectual gains over the coming year. What…
Read MoreUnder Pressure, Every Strategy Reveals What It’s Built On
By Erin Sedor | Black Fox Strategy You can’t tell what an organization is actually built on by reading its website. You can’t tell from the annual report, the values statement posted in the lobby, or the strategic plan sitting in a three-ring binder on the CEO’s shelf. You find out when something tests it.…
Read MoreWhen Purpose Becomes Performance Theater: The Purpose-Driven Strategy Reality Check
By Erin Sedor | Black Fox Strategy Purpose has officially arrived. It’s on websites, annual reports, investor decks, and conference keynotes. It’s in the hiring language, the branding, the CEO’s LinkedIn posts. Every serious organization now claims a purpose beyond profit. And in most of them, it’s theater. Not because the words are insincere when…
Read MoreEvolution Is Not a Future Problem: Why Your Strategy Is Already Behind
There’s a word that makes most leadership teams glance at the clock. Evolution. It sounds like something that belongs in a biology lecture or a ten-year forecast. Something gradual, distant, academic. Something you can worry about later. That instinct is dead wrong. And it’s costing organizations in ways they haven’t even measured yet. I am…
Read MoreThe Strategic Planning Process Isn’t About Planning. Here’s What It Really Is.
By Erin Sedor | Black Fox Strategy A CEO slides a binder across the table. It’s thick. Professional. Color-coded tabs, executive summary up front, appendices in the back. She tells me about the retreat that produced it — three days offsite, a facilitator they liked, good energy in the room. The team left feeling…
Read MoreAgentic AI and the CEO: Why Your Strategy Framework Matters More Than Your Tech Stack
By Erin Sedor | Black Fox Strategy Everyone is selling you AI right now. Your inbox is full of it. Vendors are lining up with demos. Your board wants to know your AI strategy. Your CIO has a shortlist. A well-meaning consultant is telling you that agentic AI—autonomous systems that don’t just recommend actions but…
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