Welcome to the space where I work out my thoughts on strategy and leadership. This is where I write, draw, and get your feedback so we can learn together. I welcome your comments and look forward to hearing from you. Let’s learn together! Cheers. -Russ
Today we are facing a new disaster, one that is much more illusive than a tsunami but equally deadly. At the time of this blog, Johns Hopkins is reporting almost 100,000 deaths globally from COVID-19. It causes me to ask, "What if the Boxing Day Tsunami of 2004 had hit my home country first, before impacting Asia?" How would the global humanitarian response had been different if ALL countries had been impacted by that tsunami?
Read MoreAs we experience the effects of COVID-19, I've felt really overwhelmed! The news is changing every hour and our restrictions on social norms are shifting daily. The moment you think you've got these new norms sorted, they change again.
Read MoreIn these early days of the COVID-19 Pandemic in the United States (though it's been moving across Asia and Europe for months), I am reflecting on the subject of fear. Fear is all around. Do you feel it? I do. I studied the topic of fear for an address I delivered in 2012 at Compassion International. Along the way, I found a sermon by Rabbi Clifford Librach and Rabbi Marc Gellman entitled "Thou Shalt Not be Paralyzed by Fear" (A) and I am sharing a short portion of it here. May these ancient words of al tirah be a blessing to you as they have been to me.
Read MoreI welcomed a younger colleague into my office one afternoon to discuss our corporate strategy. We were part of a large multi-national non-profit, serving people in poverty in 24 countries and conducting fundraising in 12. My colleague, our Global Strategy Manager, shared about his plan to cascade the enterprise strategy throughout the organization, all the way down to each staff members' performance review metrics. I laughed! We had over 3,500 staff across 36 countries using disparate HR systems. How could we hope to define performance plans tied to our global strategy at such a scale?
Read MoreHave you ever seen a new leader come into an organization and declare a "new strategy" that sounds a lot like the old strategy? Sure. It happens. While it takes a futurist mindset to design an effective, mission-driven strategy, we should not overlook the role of history in understanding and crafting a new way forward. Knowing where a team has been will help you avoid the mistakes of the past and craft a truly innovative future that borrows the best parts of the organization's history.
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