Purpose-Driven Strategy
Under 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…
Read MoreThe Growth Paradox: What You’re Not Building Is Eating Away at Your Strategy
By Erin Sedor | Black Fox Strategy Every CEO knows what growth looks like on the outside. Market expansion. New revenue streams. Customer acquisition. Headcount. These are the numbers that get celebrated in board meetings and reported in press releases. And they should be—external growth is the visible proof that an organization is gaining ground.…
Read MorePurpose Drift: Why Your Strategy Fails Before It Reaches the Market
By Erin Sedor | Black Fox Strategy Here’s a pattern I see play out with almost every organization I work with: the strategy looks good on paper. The vision is polished. The mission statement reads well on the website. The growth targets are ambitious and the board is satisfied. And then nothing. It just kind…
Read MoreWhy Your Risk Program and Your Strategic Plan Don’t Talk to Each Other
By Erin Sedor | Black Fox Strategy Six in ten enterprise risk management programs report a connection to strategic planning. That sounds encouraging until you read the rest of the sentence. Most of those programs fail to connect ERM insights with actual strategic decision-making. This disconnect between your risk program and strategic plan is costing…
Read MoreWhat Quantum Physics Taught Me About Strategic Planning
By Erin Sedor | Black Fox Strategy I didn’t come to quantum physics through a textbook. I came to it through frustration and epiphany. After thirty-plus years of working in and with organizations on all things risk and strategy—tribal governments, publicly traded tech companies, non-profits, federal agencies, Alaska Native Corporations, universities—I kept running into the…
Read MorePerformance Beyond Productivity: What 74% of Leaders Say They Need to Measure Differently
By Erin Sedor | Black Fox Strategy Seventy-four percent of leaders say they need better ways to measure performance beyond traditional productivity metrics. Read that again. Not 74% of academics. Not 74% of consultants. Seventy-four percent of the people literally running these organizations are telling us that what they’re measuring isn’t giving them what they…
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