BrainZooming

JANUARY 11, 2017

The topic was trust, and how people that grew up in negative home environments with crappy parents can learn to trust and not trust the right people. I jotted down the questions since I saw them as a strong strategic thinking exercise. A Strategic Thinking Exercise for Determining Trustworthiness. Innovation.

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BrainZooming

MAY 18, 2016

During a strategic thinking skills workshop for a client, we shared ideas for taking information from varied sources and identifying strategic themes. The picture represents two approaches to strategic thinking skills that analysts I’ve met throughout my career display. You’ll enjoy it! – Mike Brown.

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BrainZooming

OCTOBER 24, 2016

Here’s the strategic thinking question I saw in that moment: Where are your mirrors? FREE Download: “Results!!! Creating Strategic Impact” Leaders are looking for powerful ways to engage strong collaborators to shape shared visions. Actively engage stakeholders in strategy AND implementation success.

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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. FREE Download: “Results!!! – Mike Brown.

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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 20, 2016

As in, “We’ve learned from experience that we don’t want them drug into other tasks they might be able to contribute to if that causes performance and timeliness to suffer.” I asked them to engage in some strategic thinking about innovation opportunities for the company. The Strategic Thinking Lesson?

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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

JANUARY 23, 2018

We have designed several branding strategy scopes of work recently where the available time between developing strategy and implementation is tight. In these cases, a critical question arises: How do you open branding strategy development to other partner organizations to create a seamless implementation process?

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BrainZooming

AUGUST 29, 2017

Their processes turned out to be lax and inconsistent, which resulted in their customer experience strategy being the same. 3 Steps to Developing Consistent Customer Experience Strategy Processes. Off the top of my head, I suggested the following strategy to strengthen the consistency of their customer experience strategy.

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BrainZooming

APRIL 15, 2016

Interestingly, the most challenging situation for Brainzooming strategic thinking workshop success is when it includes TOO MANY individuals viewing themselves as creative. Talking with someone about the most difficult Brainzooming strategic thinking workshop EVER inspired the blurb below. Yes, you read that right.

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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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BrainZooming

JANUARY 7, 2016

Yes, I’m serious about that strategic thinking question. If you struggle with those questions, take a time out right away and do the strategic thinking needed to get back in touch with the love in what you do. Download our FREE “Taking the No Out of InNOvation eBook to help generate extreme creativity and ideas!

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BrainZooming

DECEMBER 9, 2015

We facilitated a two-day innovation strategy workshop for an industrial company. During the innovation strategy discussions, we addressed the production process changes from five different perspectives. From a facilitation standpoint, it was the most arduous couple of days of going through strategic thinking exercises I recall.

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BrainZooming

OCTOBER 6, 2015

We, however, routinely share how we do things via our methodology, tools, and learnings from Brainzooming strategic thinking workshops. Why Do We Give Away So Many Strategic Thinking Exercises? Strategic Thinking – Exercises and Tools for Creative Thinking and Strategy.

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BrainZooming

MARCH 31, 2016

We (and by “we” I mean “I”) would like to believe we’re strong at strategic thinking in business. And an appreciation of strategic thinking from a business perspective SHOULD extend over into ALL the decisions we make. It’s easy, when it comes to strategic thinking, to KNOW better.

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BrainZooming

SEPTEMBER 30, 2015

Late at night while reading the daily mass readings for the next day and thinking about how one can better understand oneself, I started writing. This list of strategic thinking questions emerged. Strategic thinking questions aren’t only for businesses and organizations. What brings the biggest smile to your face?

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BrainZooming

NOVEMBER 2, 2017

During this year’s presentations, I’ll be covering both brand strategy (Thursday) and social-first stories (Friday). 9 Areas to Tune-Up Your Brand Strategy for Peak Performance. Strategic Thinking Exercises – 5 Questions to Test Your Vision Statement Impact . Listening to & Learning from Customers.

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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. 10 Keys to Engaging Employees to Improve Strategic Results.

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BrainZooming

NOVEMBER 27, 2017

What strategic thinking skills are important in helping find agreement for action amid a big, unstructured conversation? 5 Strategic Thinking Skills to Lead Groups to Action. Here are five strategic thinking skills you can employ in comparable group situations: Listen for verbs. Verbs suggest action.

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BrainZooming

JANUARY 23, 2019

While the conference featured stronger keynotes, these innovation strategy-focused quotes and action items from Beth Comstock resonated with me. “Strategy is a story, well-told.” ” One Thought: Strategy shouldn’t be complex, jargon-filled, and nonsensical to anyone beyond the top executives.

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BrainZooming

APRIL 6, 2016

I am in New York today delivering a Brainzooming branding strategy workshop on Engaging Your Internal Brand Team. The event is the Brand Strategy Conference. Our content addresses collaborative ways to strategically engage employees in creating and delivering the best brand experience. Mike Brown.

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BrainZooming

FEBRUARY 10, 2017

We routinely ask those of you downloading Brainzooming strategy and innovation eBooks to share – if you are willing – the opportunities and challenges you are facing at the time. “Buy in from staff on the new vision and the required change” 5 Keys to Engaging Employees in Innovation Strategy – Our Buy-In Manifesto.

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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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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. 10 Keys to Collaborative Strategy and Strategic Planning.

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BrainZooming

AUGUST 11, 2016

What leadership skills are necessary to successfully champion a collaborative strategy ? A client fully immersed in developing and implementing a collaborative strategy asked that question. When we leave after the plan is completed, however, we’re finding many leaders aren’t prepared to implement a collaborative strategy plan.

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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

JULY 23, 2018

Today, Monday, July 23, we’re launching the new Brainzooming book, Idea Magnets: 7 Strategies for Cultivating & Attracting Creative Business Leaders. This companion e-book shares creative leadership strategies that build on the principles of Idea Magnets and offers fun approaches for recharging your own creative energy.

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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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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

DECEMBER 8, 2015

The “Inside the Executive Suite” article from Armada Corporate Intelligence profiled an intriguing innovation strategy example within a regulated industry. The Armada article highlights six ways to formulate innovation strategy in a regulated environment, including the approach JetBlue is taking. A shadow innovation strategy.

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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. FREE Download: “Results!!!

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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

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. Gain a sense of what people already think. Learn what insights the participants already have and don’t have.

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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

JANUARY 24, 2019

Even cynical types were openly surprised at the insights and learnings. It was what I’d imagined, as a child, that college would be like: a big group of friendly people who are genuinely excited about learning and doing good in the world. NEW FREE Download: 16 Keys for Finding Resources to Accelerate Your Innovation Strategy.

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BrainZooming

FEBRUARY 2, 2016

Is it a good or bad career strategy if you do not have a job description ? Quite honestly, my initial career strategy advice was to avoid a formal job description for as long as possible. Since this executive was expected to devise a job description, we created a straightforward career strategy-oriented exercise to start.

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