BrainZooming

MARCH 9, 2017

What could you do to your boring office so you and others are thinking strategically more readily and effectively? Someone searched and came to the Brainzooming.com website looking for strategic thinking in the office examples. While we have a post on doing thinking strategically without leaving the office , we don’t have anything on how the physical surroundings of an office can boost strategic thinking. Strategic Inputs.

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Strategic Thinking eBook Exercises Video 95

BrainZooming

FEBRUARY 15, 2017

You and others on your senior management team are beginning to see that strategic reality. How, if you are facing this situation, can you initiate a conversation with strategic thinking questions safe enough to raise the issue? 5 Strategic Thinking Questions to Start Reimagining the Organization. Using today as a starting point, reimagine specific strategic aspects, one at a time, to initiate the conversation. Stimulate fresh thinking.

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Strategic Thinking eBook Exercises Analysis 89

BrainZooming

AUGUST 28, 2017

How can you develop strategic thinking exercises to envision the future when it’s so easy to let previous experience cloud your imagination? In an a mid-August 2017 article in The Wall Street Journal , Pasquale Romano, CEO of ChargePoint, Inc., Romano shared an important insight into the challenge of developing strategic thinking exercises to envision future strategy: “Until you drive an EV, you are colored by 135 years of going to the gas station.

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BrainZooming

JULY 18, 2017

5 Strategic Thinking Questions to Answer Before Making a Decision. Here are five strategic thinking questions you should identify well before you are on the verge of making a decision: Who owns making the decision? If you answer those strategic thinking questions early, your decision making will likely be more simple, clear, and streamlined. 9 ideas for introducing your strategic plan with style and impact to engage your organization.

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Strategic Thinking eBook Tips Data 72

BrainZooming

DECEMBER 1, 2017

Matt Britton, a millennial generation expert , spoke about the anticipating the Class of 2025 as the keynote speaker on the closing day of the October 2017 Social Media Strategies Summit in New York. His keynote got us thinking about how today’s ten-year-olds (the Class of 2025) will change the landscape for brands, following in the wake of the impact millennials have created. A Future-Looking Strategic Thinking Experiment. Old Hat, Old Thinking, or Both?

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BrainZooming

JANUARY 11, 2017

I jotted down the questions since I saw them as a strong strategic thinking exercise. A Strategic Thinking Exercise for Determining Trustworthiness. Applying this Strategic Thinking Exercise Broadly. This is a great example of a simple strategic thinking exercise to speed and sharpen decision making. What’s even better about these four strategic thinking questions?

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Strategic Thinking Exercises eBook Analysis 40

BrainZooming

AUGUST 15, 2017

We mentioned how frequently we’re being asked to incorporate uncertainty into Brainzooming creativity and strategic thinking presentations. We have considerable content on moving forward amid uncertainty (including the 4 Strategies for Implementing in Uncertain Times eBook), and we’re developing additional strategic thinking pieces on uncertainty and flexibility.

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Strategic Thinking eBook Guidelines Exercises 56

BrainZooming

FEBRUARY 9, 2017

That’s why instead of typing out nine strategic thinking questions from various business conversations (and contemplations) so far this week, I decided to Sharpie marker and share them with you in this image. These are strategic thinking questions our clients are asking. Download our FREE eBook: The 600 Most Powerful Strategic Planning Questions. I needed a new way to express myself last night.

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Strategic Thinking eBook Guidelines Tips 40

BrainZooming

MARCH 30, 2017

Along with the recap, Inside the Executive Suite offered sixteen strategic thinking questions inspired by the Fanatics case study that you can use to explore agile strategy options within your own organization. We thought the list was intriguing, so we secured the go ahead to share the strategic thinking questions with you here. 16 Strategic Thinking Questions to Explore Agile Strategy and Disruptive Innovation.

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Strategic Thinking Agile Disruption Strategy 40

BrainZooming

MAY 9, 2017

Learning what participants in an upcoming big meeting know, think, and believe before they come together in a large group is one tactic to strengthen team collaboration. 14 Team Collaboration Benefits from Pre-Meeting Outreach. Depending on the nature of the pre-meeting outreach you conduct with participants, it can promote team collaboration and help: Get to know participants better and figure out how to best work with them. Gain a sense of what people already think.

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BrainZooming

MAY 22, 2017

I was thinking about tables recently, and the role they play in creating or thwarting team collaboration. In different situations, distance around a table can offer space for individual reflection or a couple of people to collaborate without being drawn into something bigger. Get rooms with way more square footage than you think you will need. Team Collaboration with No Table at All.

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BrainZooming

APRIL 7, 2017

Articulating Your Strategic Innovation Direction in an Understandable Way. Strategic Thinking Questions to Identify What Matters for a Brand. Workplace Diversity – The Why, Who, and How of Strategic Thinking. Strategic Thinking Success – 3 Critical Thinking Perspectives. Strategic Thinking Perspectives – Three Strategic Voices to Include on Your Team. Creative Thinking – The Math of Brainstorming and New Ideas. #3

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BrainZooming

APRIL 5, 2017

Talking to executives, you hear the expectation that an organization should implement a solid strategic plan strategy-by-strategy. To the extent a strategic plan is not implemented in that way, it falls short in some fashion. This goes along with the idea that if you never remove the big strategic planning notebook from your office shelf, it is a complete failure: you might as well not even do a strategic plan. More effectively creates alignment in strategic thinking.

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Collaboration Exercises Strategic Management Engagement 73

BrainZooming

FEBRUARY 24, 2017

We have released a host of eBooks on strategic planning exercises and ideas to increase collaboration, creative thinking, alignment, and successful implementation. In case you missed any Brainzooming strategy planning eBooks, here are seven to jump start your strategic planning exercises and better engage your team in shaping your organization’s direction. Results – Creating Strategic Impact (Download). 11 Fun Ideas for Strategic Planning (Download).

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Exercises Tools Strategic Thinking Analysis 94

BrainZooming

JUNE 21, 2017

Download: FREE Innovation Strategic Thinking Fake Book. This new ebook features sixteen strategic thinking exercises to help you ideate, prioritize, and develop your best innovative growth ideas. Learn and rapidly deploy effective strategic thinking exercises to spur innovation. Brainzooming - All Posts Collaboration Creativity Innovation Performance Strategic Thinking Tools innovation opportunities innovation strategy

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Strategy Strategy eBook Exercises 117

BrainZooming

JUNE 22, 2017

How can you get the most mileage from the free strategic planning eBooks we regularly offer as downloads? We do not pretend to be able to imagine EVERY single situation where you might apply our strategic thinking exercises. Yet when we create new eBooks, our main goal is ensuring the content is heavy on ideas and tools you can apply to improve strategic thinking and implementation in your organization. Using Our Own Strategic Planning Exercises.

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Exercises eBook Disruption Strategic Thinking 76

BrainZooming

JANUARY 26, 2017

We added supporting links on many of the points and wanted to share the ideas with you: Leadership Skills – 15 Ideas for Innovative Leadership in 2017. ” The article shares the thinking of ninety-six global business leaders on a variety of leadership skills. We wanted to highlight specific questions, recommendations, and challenges that seem particularly pertinent for leading strategically and innovatively in the year ahead.

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Leadership eBook Meeting Tips 40

BrainZooming

MAY 1, 2017

Emma Gibson forwarded an article from Harvard Business Review addressing four factors that distinguish top chief executive performers in creating strategic impact. 4 Critical Factors for Successful Executives in Creating Strategic Impact. For each characteristic, here are related Brainzooming articles with exercises and tips to improve your own performance creating strategic impact. Strategic Thinking Exercise – Simply Making Big Decisions.

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Exercises eBook Strategy Strategy 87

BrainZooming

DECEMBER 4, 2017

While everyone hopes these meetings are smart, strategic, and have a meaningful impact on the business , that rarely seems to be the case. 12 Reasons Budget Meetings Aren’t Strategic. Too often, budget meetings aren’t strategic. They are handled out of context strategically , looking at the business by department instead of by initiative. Budget meetings are not integrated with strategic planning and business strategy. It’s that time.

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Meeting eBook Exercises Strategic Management 94

BrainZooming

MAY 12, 2017

I think this is supposed to (and can) be a good thing, but I have to tell you something. I say all this because I think a lot of people romanticize self-employment or entrepreneurship. ” It’s a horrible assumption, if you think about it. Brainzooming - All Posts Career Collaboration Guest author Performance Strategic Thinking mentoring

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Entrepreneurship Strategic Thinking Examples Marketing 100

BrainZooming

APRIL 10, 2017

Suppose the strategic planning task at hand is imagining what your organization will look like at some future point. What are strategic planning exercises you can use with a team? Employ extreme creativity and disruptive innovation-oriented questions to push your strategic planning vision exercise in bold, future directions. After securing individual responses, use a group strategic conversation to settle on the future strategic planning vision.

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Exercises eBook Trends Tips 91

BrainZooming

JUNE 29, 2017

Someone downloaded a free Brainzooming strategy eBook, noting his biggest strategy challenge is “how to do a strategic planning process when you are new.” ” That question relates to something we do all the time: walk into a new client in an unfamiliar industry to design and facilitate a strategic planning process. What you see as strategic may not be what others think is strategic. Getting to What Is Strategic.

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Resources Comparison eBook Brainstorming 86

BrainZooming

NOVEMBER 13, 2017

We were working with an organization on its future vision while facilitating its strategic planning process. As we worked on strategic thinking exercises to explore the company’s future vision and user experience, the change management strategy vocabulary the group used was conventional, unemotional, and lacking innovative thinking. In the exercise, the group cut words and images from magazines to express their depictions of various strategic concepts.

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Change Strategy Strategy Exercises 93

BrainZooming

DECEMBER 12, 2017

Each of the four roles were intended to help push the group’s thinking on its customer experience strategy in varied ways. 4 Roles to Push Bold Customer Experience Strategy Thinking. We provided strategic thinking questions of their own to use, including: “That’s great and how can we do that _?” Questioners of What We Think (to challenge the status quo ). That’s the problem of me never having taken one of Chuck’s Six Thinking Hats workshops.

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Strategy Strategy eBook Groups 79

BrainZooming

SEPTEMBER 8, 2017

We just created twenty-five year roadmaps for a client’s strategic planning process in two hours and forty-five minutes. How do we eliminate so much time from typical strategic planning process approaches? 11 Ways to Speed Up Your Strategic Planning Process. Here are eleven things we do differently to speed up developing strategy: We design the strategic planning process to fit your organization and team – not the other way around.

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BrainZooming

APRIL 17, 2017

I was talking with a friend about how we approach developing a strategic planning process for a client. I told her I don’t tend to think about moments of pride, since I try to avoid the seven deadly sins as best I can! The statement does a great job of describing the brand impact we strive to create with a strategic planning process: Getting smart work done while expanding creative thinking more quickly than anyone imagined possible.

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BrainZooming

MAY 2, 2017

We address their experiences in our collaborative strategy implementation approach. You can’t invite others to collaborate on a strategic plan and later ignore them when you launch it. The strong value of collaborative strategic planning comes, in part, from involving parties critical to strong implementation even before you create the plan. 4 keys for selecting the right collaborative leaders for implementation.

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BrainZooming

JUNE 19, 2017

3 Conditions for Explosive Creative Thinking Skills. Reflecting on grain elevators led me to consider explosive creative thinking skills , and the parallels between the two. The characteristics that create a potentially dangerous explosive situation at a grain elevator can be turned to a positive when applied to creative thinking skills: #1. Finally, by having creative thinking exercises in place, you provide the right structure for group collaboration.

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Creative Thinking Creativity eBook Exercises 81

BrainZooming

MAY 16, 2017

Are you involved with the strategic planning process for your organization? That could involve leading it, participating in it, or trying to influence the strategic planning process so it delivers more value and better results for the organization? 7 Strategic Planning Process Challenges You Can Fix! Typical complaints about a strategic planning process. If you have a role in strategic planning, do any of these describe your situation?

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eBook Exercises Strategic Management Leadership 83

BrainZooming

SEPTEMBER 1, 2017

Chuck Dymer and I led the first step in a client’s multi-day strategic planning process this week. And fun was an important expectation since they found us by Googling “strategic planning fun” and downloading our eBook on the topic of fun strategic planning. We have been preparing the strategic planning process design for this workshop over the last month. They are a great example of how a client can powerfully support strategic planning success.

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eBook Exercises Engagement Design 74

BrainZooming

AUGUST 29, 2017

The right combination of outside perspectives and productive strategic thinking exercises enables your brand to ideate, prioritize, and propel innovative growth. Rapidly deploy effective strategic thinking exercises to spur innovation. Brainzooming - All Posts Branding Collaboration Implementation Performance Strategic Thinking Strategy Tools customer experience strategy

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Strategy Strategy eBook Exercises 74

BrainZooming

SEPTEMBER 11, 2017

That realization was a breakthrough in how we would create a strategy development exercise back when I ran strategic planning for a Fortune 500 corporation. The consultants we worked with to help us develop our first big strategic marketing plan back in 1997, didn’t provide productive structure to help us. It was about fully-formed answers with no real support to help business and marketing managers do the strategic thinking to develop their strategies.

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BrainZooming

NOVEMBER 28, 2017

He’s about to leave his job as a strategic planning and marketing VP at a Fortune 500 transportation company and he’s got this whole other direction mapped out for himself—he’s been blogging now for a couple of years in preparation for this move. “I I don’t think I had any clue, at the start, about the impact the blog would have on my life.”. Back in LA I keep thinking about how naturally we worked together and how our skills and expertise complemented one another.

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BrainZooming

MARCH 17, 2017

This transition forces me to formally communicate aspects of the Brainzooming brand, including strategic assumptions and brand personality, vocabulary, design standards, and other elements that have only been in my head until now. I’m a great client because of all the creative thinking background and experience communicating with creative people. While collaborating with others on the Brainzooming brand, I’ve doled out plenty of advice.

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Creativity eBook Exercises Strategy 83

BrainZooming

MARCH 15, 2017

Short Story: Instead of voting on strategic priorities, use exercises incorporating individual perspectives and strategic conversations to make fact-based decisions on where to focus your company’s attention. How do you approach prioritizing strategic opportunities ? Prioritizing Strategic Opportunities. After every idea is placed, the group engages in a strategic conversation about each idea’s placement.

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BrainZooming

SEPTEMBER 5, 2017

Based on executives visiting the Brainzooming website, there is considerable interest right now in “strategic planning icebreaker activities.” I guess that isn’t surprising. This is the time of year when most organizations that are going to do strategic planning are thinking about it or have already started. 2 New Strategic Planning Icebreaker Activities. Here are two brand new ideas for strategic planning icebreaker activities.

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eBook Exercises Disruption Groups 72

BrainZooming

JULY 11, 2017

What can you expect from a strategic planning process ? As I explained it, our objective when leading a strategic planning process is to make sure the result is an innovative, implementable strategy. 9 Things to Deliver in a Strategic Planning Process. That specific phrase (an innovative, implementable strategy) is very important to a strategic planning process. That question was the topic of several recent conversations.

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Exercises Strategic Management Resources Strategic Thinking 69

BrainZooming

JULY 5, 2017

The size and scale of opportunities you pursue, even in a company that was not always all that innovative, oriented me to think a big team and significant dollars are vital for real innovation. We haven’t wavered from the initial reason for starting The Brainzooming Group: to take our learnings on simplifying, collaboratively approaching, and speeding up strategic planning to smart organizations wanting to conduct business differently.

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BrainZooming

NOVEMBER 7, 2017

Looking back ten years, suffice it to say that starting to write and publish about the work I was first doing in the Fortune 500 world as a VP of Strategic Marketing and then in launching Brainzooming was one of the most important career decisions I ever made. Brainzooming - All Posts Career Collaboration Innovation Performance Strategic Thinking Tools servant leadershipThis week marks the tenth anniversary of the Brainzooming blog.

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Leadership Guidelines eBook Analysis 69

BrainZooming

SEPTEMBER 18, 2017

I’m part of one of ten small teams within a seventy-plus-person volunteer group developing a multi-faceted strategic plan. Reflecting on it the next morning, something struck me: this is the first time I’ve participated in someone else’s strategic planning process in over a decade. Since we were promised an “easy, five-step strategy planning process” extending through early December, the timing overlaps many of you conducting your own strategic planning process cycles.

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BrainZooming

JANUARY 4, 2017

I think I’ll go eat worms.” The “Power of Positive Thinking” works. Taking money from someone gives them the right to tell you what they think you should do. For organizational innovation success, contact The Brainzooming Group to help your team be more successful by rapidly expanding strategic options and creating innovative growth strategies.

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BrainZooming

JUNE 7, 2017

“Inside the Executive Suite” from Armada Corporate Intelligence featured ideas keeping executives focused on strategic priorities during strategic planning meetings. If your team wanders away from the important strategic topic, here’s a strategy to address it: 3 Ways to Keep Strategic Priorities Front and Center with Executives via Inside the Executive Suite. Keeping Strategic Priorities Front and Center. Actively Listening for Strategic Information.

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Meeting eBook Groups Strategy 71

BrainZooming

MAY 24, 2017

“What I do in these situations is step back and think about what the information means for daily and longer-term business. Provide context to others so they think about their activities in a bigger or slightly different way that better fits a future outcome. Brainzooming - All Posts Collaboration Communication Guest author Implementation Performance Strategic Thinking Strategy Tools Armada Corporate Intelligence business strategy

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