Featured essay
Strategy11 min read
The Decision Before the Decision
Most strategic failures are not failures of judgment. They are failures of framing — the choice was made before anyone agreed on what was actually being decided.
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Working notes from the practice.
Essays and working papers on the decisions leadership teams actually face — written from engagements, not from the balcony. No frameworks for their own sake; no listicles at all.
The index
All essays and working papers
Strategy
The Decision Before the Decision
Most strategic failures are not failures of judgment. They are failures of framing — the choice was made before anyone agreed on what was actually being decided.
11 min read
Strategy
Strategy Is a Sequence, Not a Slide
A strategy document describes a destination. A working strategy is an ordered set of commitments — and the order is where strategies succeed or fail.
8 min read
Growth
Winning a Market You Never Chose
Growth rarely fails loudly. It fails quietly, in segments that were never deliberately selected, at prices that were never set with intent.
9 min read
Operations
Margin Is an Operating Decision, Not an Outcome
Companies that treat margin as a report they receive rather than a system they design will keep receiving reports they don't like.
7 min read
Governance
What Boards Actually Owe Management
The board's most valuable contribution is not oversight of the answers. It is insistence on the quality of the questions management is answering.
8 min read
Strategy
The Cost of Ambiguity
Ambiguity doesn't paralyze organizations. It lets every function proceed on its own private interpretation — until the interpretations collide.
6 min read
Growth
Market Entry Is a Portfolio Decision
Every entry proposal looks reasonable in isolation. The question a leadership team should ask is what the portfolio of bets is doing to the core.
8 min read
Operations
The First Ninety Days Belong to the Operating Cadence
New leaders rarely fail for lack of vision. They fail because no one established the rhythm at which the organization now operates.
7 min read
Governance
When to Retire a Legacy Metric
Metrics outlive the decisions they were built to inform. Keeping one past its purpose doesn't preserve discipline — it substitutes for it.
6 min read
Working papers
Working papers, before publication.
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