BrainZooming

DECEMBER 1, 2015

Success factors in strategic planning and creating collaborative strategy were the central topics we tackled on an edition of Smart Companies Radio, hosted by Kelly Scanlon, the owner of Thinking Bigger Business Media, Inc., Creating Strategic Impact mini-book. Creating Strategic Impact – How to Start?

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BrainZooming

NOVEMBER 18, 2015

7 Strategic Thinking Questions When Things Aren’t Working. When things took an unexpected turn the other day, I mentally flew through various strategic thinking questions trying to comes up with ideas to adjust what we were doing. They need strategic thinkers who can develop strategy and turn it into results.

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Strategic Thinking Engagement Tips Strategy 40

BrainZooming

NOVEMBER 25, 2015

If you have the right people present , and they are in a chatty mood, how can you morph the gathering into a strategic conversation? One way is by introducing strategic thinking questions that steer meandering conversations into strategic conversations. 9 Strategic Thinking Questions to Start Strategic Conversations.

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BrainZooming

APRIL 5, 2016

Since all the companies competed with one another, each one needed to determine its own business strategies. It seems ridiculous to help a company become better at strategic thinking and marketing without being allowed to tell them how to do it. Strategic Thinking Exercises – 3 Responses to New Ideas.

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BrainZooming

FEBRUARY 22, 2016

During in-person and online strategic planning workshops , we regularly use a strategic thinking exercise that helps leadership groups quickly identify a shared future vision statement. The descriptions are purposely neither good nor bad; they simply represent ways an organization could pursue the strategy.

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Strategic Thinking Exercises Underperforming Technical Team Groups 40

BrainZooming

APRIL 20, 2016

I asked them to engage in some strategic thinking about innovation opportunities for the company. They used that as a justification for opting out of strategic thinking. I disabused them of the idea, however, that their narrow job descriptions were synonymous with narrow strategic thinking roles.

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BrainZooming

JUNE 26, 2018

Talking with one city’s representatives about strategies to sell-in a broadband recommendation with voters, they asked whether it is okay to engage its citizens after city leadership develops a recommendation. Engage your audience in collaborative strategic planning earlier than later. It involves more constraints.

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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. 7 Collaborative Strategic Planning Process Impacts (Even if the Plan Sits on the Shelf).

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BrainZooming

DECEMBER 9, 2015

We facilitated a two-day innovation strategy workshop for an industrial company. The company wants to make significant changes to a major production process. During the innovation strategy discussions, we addressed the production process changes from five different perspectives. Are we done yet?

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BrainZooming

AUGUST 30, 2016

I mentioned upcoming business collaboration opportunities for Brainzooming yesterday , including co-presentations, creating content, and developing new workshop and training offerings. What to look for in a business collaboration? The collaborator brings something different (and complementary) to what we do and offer.

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BrainZooming

NOVEMBER 11, 2015

We have been working with a client that had done a lot of strategic thinking about a new initiative. Those are six starting places to use when you are doing strategic thinking about big lists. The thing is, they had done the hard strategic thinking and already had all the raw material they needed.

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BrainZooming

MAY 6, 2016

At the 2016 Brand Strategy Conference, Antonia Dean, Director – Marketing, Brand Development, & Strategy at The Estée Lauder Companies covered the strategic thinking ideas behind creating an entrepreneurial environment in a large company. Actively engage stakeholders in strategy AND implementation success.

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Strategic Thinking Underperforming Technical Team Company Culture 40

BrainZooming

AUGUST 1, 2016

If you’ve been a Brainzooming reader for any length of time, you know we’re huge proponents of collaborative strategic planning. Collaborative planning implies a process that goes beyond the board room to include individuals throughout the organization in meaningful ways to provide insights and input to shape organizational strategy.

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BrainZooming

SEPTEMBER 28, 2015

The week included: Large scale community collaboration workshops – Nearly eighty students from Southern Illinois University-Carbondale gathered Monday night and a comparable number of Carbondale, IL residents assembled on Tuesday for community collaboration workshops to imagine the community’s future with Gigabit Internet capabilities.

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BrainZooming

FEBRUARY 26, 2016

Often, however, executives jump too quickly to flying everyone into one place for a big strategic planning meeting. When discussing a strategic planning or innovation strategy engagement with a client, we use the graphic below to design our recommended approach. 3 Ways Online Collaboration Works to Deliver Big Benefits.

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Collaboration Creative Thinking Exercises Groups 40

BrainZooming

OCTOBER 1, 2015

In nearly every Brainzooming community collaboration workshop, we conclude with a Plus-Minus-Interesting-Recommendation-Question exercise (a PMIRQ for short). 41 Surprising Things about Community Collaboration Done Well. New People Coming Together Collaboratively and Effectively. Small unknown group collaboration”.

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Collaboration Exercises Strategic Thinking Brainstorming 40

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.” Secure copies of previous plans and strategy documents, and don’t settle for the first things people offer you. Getting to What Is Strategic.

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Resources Strategic Thinking Comparison Strategy 86

BrainZooming

JULY 25, 2016

The thing is, unsuccessful employee engagement strategies are not an employee problem. It is a LEADERSHIP problem when purported employee engagement strategies are not working. We see great leaders among our clients successfully taking steps that meaningfully involve employees in shaping strategy and implementation.

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BrainZooming

MARCH 21, 2016

I’ll be presenting a Brainzooming workshop on internal branding strategy at the Brand Strategy Conference in New York, April 6-8. The workshop, while drawing on material from my Fortune 500 work, springs from multiple conversations at the 2015 Brand Strategy Conference. Download Your Free Internal Branding Strategy eBook!

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BrainZooming

APRIL 21, 2017

The folks at Armada Corporate Intelligence offered an internal branding strategy take on the United Airlines woes, offering strategic thinking questions you can ask and answer to improve your brand’s resiliency and avoid brand crises. 3 Ways Your Internal Branding Strategy Can Be Smarter than United Airlines.

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Strategy Strategy Underperforming Technical Team Technical Review 72

BrainZooming

MARCH 9, 2016

The challenge in a client meeting was developing the strategy for a later meeting intended to build support for a biennial community event. The team leader asked, “How is it possible to listen to us talk and turn it into a strategy so quickly?”. 9 Creative Thinking Skills to Turn Talk into Strategy. – Mike Brown.

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BrainZooming

SEPTEMBER 19, 2016

It is time for strategic planning across organizations. To make it a little easier to track down ideas for how you can approach developing strategy this year, here are nineteen Brainzooming articles filled with 113 techniques and ideas for improving your organization’s strategic planning process. Mike Brown.

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Strategic Thinking Exercises Guidelines Strategy 40

BrainZooming

MARCH 16, 2016

Whenever possible, we try to help clients select a mix of people to participate in group strategy exercises. We are also proponents for reaching beyond familiar people that are always involved strategic planning meetings and drive the outcomes of group strategy exercises. – Mike Brown.

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BrainZooming

JULY 12, 2016

Reviewing the innovation strategy challenges business executives identified when downloading Brainzooming eBooks , they frequently mention gaining “buy-in” for significant change initiatives. Here are five keys we’ve found for successfully engaging employees in innovation strategy. That’s no surprise. Ask me to participate.

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BrainZooming

FEBRUARY 12, 2016

There are a couple of different ways to apply structure to strategic planning exercises : You can enforce using templates and forms participants have to complete so their answers are uniformed and structured. This means there is no opportunity for productive collaboration to devise the plan.

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BrainZooming

NOVEMBER 13, 2015

Great branding strategy examples abound. If your organization specializes in one particular area, your branding strategy discussions should include the question: “If our customers can think it, can we make it?” They need strategic thinkers who can develop strategy and turn it into results. Flexibility?

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Strategy Strategy Guidelines Engagement 40

BrainZooming

APRIL 22, 2016

I debuted a presentation on “Results – Creating Strategic Impact,” our mini-book on employee engagement ideas to boost an organization’s strategic thinking. Download this free, action-focused mini-book to: Learn smart ways to separate strategic opportunities from the daily noise of business. And who knows.

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Engagement Strategic Thinking Underperforming Technical Team Exercises 40

BrainZooming

JUNE 28, 2016

In an edited excerpt, here is what they shared in their Inside the Executive Suite column about streamlining strategic planning. 5 Keys to Streamlining Strategic Planning. Most executives can’t write a strategy plan, so don’t make them. Executives that SHOULD know how to develop and write a strategic plan struggled.

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BrainZooming

FEBRUARY 3, 2016

Here are four different approaches The Brainzooming Group employs with clients: Instead of using complex strategic exercises that aren’t beneficial outside planning, we use strategic thinking questions that fit how people think and work on a daily basis. Actively engage stakeholders in strategy AND implementation success.

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Strategic Thinking Exercises Engagement Strategy 40

BrainZooming

JANUARY 22, 2016

And by done well, we mean that the vision statement: Is developed broadly and collaboratively. These fourteen articles recap our thinking and recommendations across these three areas. Collaborating on a Vision Statement. Strategic Planning – All the Strategy Roles You Need.

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BrainZooming

OCTOBER 27, 2015

With a strong brand and a robust branding strategy , there are many ways to deliver valuable brand benefits to customers. If, however, usage is declining for one of the best ways your brand delivers customer benefits, should your turnaround branding strategy focus on cutting back in providing it? A Personal Invitation’s Impact.

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Strategy Strategy Engagement Collaboration 40

BrainZooming

FEBRUARY 23, 2016

And the asterisk on fun acknowledges we’re stretching the definition of fun to cover things nerdy strategic planners think are fun such as “mental stimulation,” “highly collaborative groups,” and “people that want to be involved in strategic planning the next time it happens.”.

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BrainZooming

JANUARY 15, 2016

Individuals Posing Creative Thinking Challenges. How Creative Thinking Gets Killed by Team Members – 8 Fatal Blows. 5 Ideas When an Uber-Positive Boss Crushes Creative Thinking. Strategic Thinking Skills – 29 Clues You’re Not Dealing with a Strategic Thinker.

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Creative Thinking Creativity Brainstorming Strategic Thinking 40

BrainZooming

MARCH 8, 2016

mini-Book, we ask a question about the biggest strategy implementation opportunity or challenge the individual is facing in his or her organization. and listed “unfreezing (a) team, moving forward, and preparing for growth” as the strategic task at hand. Creating Organizational Change and Change Management – 4 Strategy Options.

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BrainZooming

NOVEMBER 11, 2015

Because of this, the list was worthless for doing what I suspect everyone hoped it would do: provide a starting point for the strategic thinking needed to back into a definition of and explanation for what the new initiative would turn out to be. 6 Ways to Organize Ideas from Strategic Planning Exercises.

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BrainZooming

JANUARY 20, 2016

What is the business strategy behind launching this new program? Creating Strategic Impact” Senior executives are looking for employees who are strong collaborators and communicators while being creative and flexible. In short they need strategic thinkers who can develop strategy and turn it into results.

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BrainZooming

JANUARY 24, 2017

This Brainzooming mini-book, “Results – Creating Strategic Impact” unveils ten proven lessons leaders can use to boost collaboration, meaningful strategic conversations, and results. Increase focus for your team with productive strategy questions everyone can use.

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