Alex M H Smith’s Post

Ha this is awesome. This fella is Hunter S Thompson, an author and journalist who, safe to say, was pretty good at what he did. But how did he get so good? Well, lots of ways, but one of them was rather unusual. A way which most of us today would never even consider. → He copied The Great Gatsby, word by word, so he could “feel” what it felt like to write a great novel. He did it with A Farewell to Arms too. He knew what every golf pro, ski instructor, and piano teacher knows, but which somehow we have banished from intellectual disciplines: That we learn by copying. A long time ago (when the average person was much better at writing) such exercises were commonplace. But somewhere along the way, we convinced ourselves they were “rigid”, or “constricting”, or “uncreative”, and we ceased such drill-style forms of education. But they work. They give you the vibe. They give you the touch. They reveal secrets. They coach you on a subconscious level. Now look, I know that most of us aren’t trying to be authors here. I’m not saying you should punch out Lolita on your days off. But I do think that if you’re involved in any form of *creative* discipline (and strategy is one), doing some form of copying drill could be a very very smart idea. It has the potential to teach you the hidden language, the cadence, the rhythm of your craft. The stuff they CAN’T easily explain in a textbook. 👉👉 People believe that just by reading something, you take it in. But you truly don't. You have to *chew it* somehow. Otherwise it passes through you, without leaving a mark.👈👈 Copying isn't the only form of "chewing". But it was good enough for HST. So it should be good enough for us! ___ 👍 Like this? ♻️ Repost it! :)

There is no greater block on strategic thought than this: → The refusal to take responsibility. Sometimes this is blatant. People avoid responsibility simply by avoiding making a choice. No choice? Nothing can go wrong. This is why much strategy is “hot air”, because the strategist wanted to look good but without putting their head on the block. But there are also other, more subtle, ways of avoiding responsibility. And the most common is handing it to “the data”. It’s understandable. It creates the illusion that there was no choice to be made; that there was a “scientifically inevitable” direction which anyone would follow given the same information. Nobody got fired for hiring IBM. And nobody got fired for following the data. But it’s not true is it? Because no matter how data-led the decision, it still, ultimately, is a decision made by a human being. The human being chooses what data to pay attention to. They choose how to interpret the data. They choose what to upweight, what to downweight, what to leave out altogether. The data does nothing; it’s an inert substance. You work with data the same way a builder works with bricks. The bricks are no more "responsible" for the building than the data is for the strategy. The buck always stops with the person. So why is this important? For two reasons: 1️⃣ By seeking to outsource responsibility to the data, you will massively limit your scope of enquiry; burrowing only into the possibilities that have solid numbers to back them up. These may well be relevant, but they’re only a *fraction* of your options. Only a tiny sliver of reality can be “data-ified”, but the rest is no less real, so you should be open to it. 2️⃣ Regardless of the idea, for things to work, SOMEONE has to take ownership. Otherwise you will drift on a captain-less ship; you will succumb to the impotence of “management by committee”, and regardless of the thinking nothing will be done. It’s important that you identify with your strategy, and do so proudly. People won’t judge you. They’ll be grateful to you. So admit it. Stand tall and say, “this is my opinion, it may be wrong, but it’s what I think we should do”. This won’t weaken your position, it’ll strengthen it. Because that, ultimately, is what leadership is all about. __ 👍 Like this? ♻️ Repost it! :) #strategy #founder #ceo

People love a template. And to be fair, why not? It can’t do your thinking for you (much as some try), but it can help you remember important points which you’d normally forget. Well, I don’t have a full strategy template for you here, but I do have the most important pieces of it: → The bits people always neglect (And the bits that really count) Every time you write your strategy, write it with these. And although it’ll be challenging, it’ll raise your game tenfold. ___ This is from my Strategy Secrets series. Want to get them all? Then be sure to follow, and hit the notification bell 🔔 👍 Like this? ♻️ Repost it! :) #founder #strategy #ceo

This is one of deepest truths in business. And it’s one most people never think about. We believe, instinctively, that we can “push” businesses to growth. That a 3m business can turn into a 30m business through a combination of effort and time. And so, we spend our time trying to make it happen: - Improving quality - Hiring better people - Trying new marketing angles - Seeking new distribution - Adding new features …and all the other forms of “fuel” that we think drive growth. But the truth is, it doesn’t work this way. This is a bit like believing that if you keep on eating you’ll forever get taller and taller. No, the truth is a business - just like any organism - has a *natural* size, that it will reach at maturity and then stop growing. A stable 3m business is that size because that’s the size it SHOULD be based on its current strategy and identity. You can’t “push it bigger” because it is what it is. The only way to actually grow it? → Change what it is Enter the “chrysalis” of strategic development as a caterpillar, and emerge as a butterfly. Do it right, and you will have a new thing on your hands with different growth potential. The business will then naturally start to trend towards that potential just as a baby grows to an adult. You won’t have to do “more”. You won’t have to be “better”. You won’t have to act “smarter”. You can just keep doing what you were doing, but just to a different thing. When you understand this, the futility of so much business “graft” becomes clear. And so does the purpose of strategy. __ 👍 Like this? ♻️ Repost it! :) #strategy #ceo #founder

It's not that it's hard. It's not that it's complicated. It's not that people are dummies. No, strategy is a sh*tshow for a much more simple reason. And it's a reason that's quite easy to fix... Check it out. (And then, sort it out) ___ This is part of a series I'm doing on strategic secrets that few people understand. Want to get them all? Just go to my profile, hit follow, and the notification bell 🔔 #strategy #ceo #founder

I'm not going to explain the thinking behind all these. If you're really interested, you can check out my other posts or book or whatever - but the truth is you don't need to understand them. → You just need to *answer* them. You just need to explore the questions, and take them seriously. Simply doing that is going to take your mind to places where you (and your competitors) have never been before. Places where true insight, edge, and competitive advantage is to be found. How do you turn your answers into strategy? Well, that's a topic for another day. But in some senses that's the easy part. The safe and comforting "technical" info people like to get lost in. But without the raw material of divergent thinking? It's useless. So that's where you should start. ___ P.S. for the deep understanding make sure you subscribe to The Hidden Path via the sign-up widget on my website. You'll also get a neat little ebook - 5 Strategy Laws Great Brands Understand (but everyone else is clueless about). 👍 Like this? ♻ Repost it! :) #strategy #founder #ceo

As a 39 year old, this hits hard 😅 But I also think it reflects a universal strategic pattern ↓ What Jung is suggesting here is that there comes an inflection point in your life, when you stop *preparing* to live, and actually start LIVING. Personally I feel this quite strongly; I've often felt I was "getting ready" for life, but never quite doing it. I still feel that way now. What's interesting however is that this is remarkably similar to the inflection point where a business shifts from being: Unstrategic → strategic. When it "knows itself" well enough to stop experimenting, and start fully "being" what it is. Essentially the classic pattern is this: 1. Initial prototype idea 2. Startup creation 3. Experimentation / research period 4. Pause to figure out strategy from what its learnt 5. Execute strategy 6. Flourish as "final version" of itself This is the story of many great brands - Nike, Patagonia, Airbnb, Apple, you name it. Strategy is often simply the point where the business stops hustling and starts "living". Now of course there's a tragedy here. Some - or even most - businesses never start living. And some - or even most - people never start living either. The research period lasts forever. They are always seeking. They never figure "it" out. (Whatever "it" may be). I don't know why this happens to people, you'll have to ask Jung about that. But I do know why it happens to businesses. It's because they aren't even *conscious* that they are researching. They aren't even aware that an inflection point exists. They have no idea that a different way of being exists on the other side of it. Basically, they aren't aware of the pattern. So the first step to getting to the other side? → Just know that it exists. It doesn't mean you'll get there. It doesn't mean you'll solve it. It doesn't mean you'll come to some epic strategic resolution. But it does at least mean you'll try, and that's a start. And if I had to guess, I imagine the same thing applies for Jung's point too. ___ P.s. if this is your kind of thing, then make sure you subscribe to my newsletter, The Hidden Path - just click the link to my website in bio. #strategy #founder #ceo

You do not fight with your competitors. You dance with them. Now, understand that this idea is foundational. So foundational in fact that when you get it, you barely need to learn anything else about strategy at all. Everything just falls into place around it. Everything resolves. What it means is that instead of seeing your competitors as things to "destroy" (which leads to unstrategic behaviour), you instead think of them as things to: - Pivot around - Complement - Balance You and your competitor are "frames" for each other, where the qualities of one should, in some sense, be the mirror image of the qualities in the other. In this video I give a semi-fictional example - but actually the world is full of real examples of competitors locked in a dance, e.g.: - Mac vs PC - Haagen Daaz vs Ben & Jerrys Such competitors amplify each others differences, and work together (perhaps unconsciously) to partition the market between them. This then leads to clear ownership of market position, and profitability for everyone. Now this might give the impression that your competitor needs to be complicit in the dance. That you need to collude or conspire in some way. But that's the beauty part - they don't. You can dance with your competitors without them dancing with you. All you have to do is to shape yourself around the gaps they leave behind. Act as the yin to their yang; their photo negative. Identify who their customers are, and drive them into their arms, with you picking up the rest. Do all this, and you are doing elite level strategy. And you're also helping create a thriving balanced market that will be fruitful for everyone. ___ This clip comes from my appearance on the Untalented podcast with the great Ollie Scott . To listen, just search "Untalented" on your podcast provider of choice, and I'm the most recent one. (Sorry I'd love to share a link but then the algo will kill the post 🙄 ) #strategy #founder #ceo

Today I realised the one thing that's made me successful as a strategist. And it's got nothing to do with "strategy". It's actually a personality quirk which I never knew I had until quite recently. To me it felt normal. Natural. Just the way things are. But then our own quirks always feel that way don't they? The quirk in question is this: → I feel comfortable telling people what to do Don't get me wrong, this is not necessarily a good thing! It probably speaks to all manner of narcissism and misplaced confidence in my own opinions. In many walks of life it's a weakness. However it IS good for strategy. The reason is very simple. People LOVE being told what to do. They crave it. They want that certainty, that confidence, that clarity. I love it. You love it. We all love it. But the problem is that when you're very senior - a founder, a CEO - suddenly you find yourself bereft of this security. The buck stops with you. All the weight, all the pressure, and all the responsibility of decisions becomes yours. And even if you hire experts to tell you what to do? Most of them will hold back. They'll refuse to be drawn, or take the burden of a hard binary decision. They'll return the buck to you. After all, you're the boss right? But, for whatever unflattering reason, I don't have this filter. I'll just tell you what I think, and it doesn't occur to me that it puts me in a vulnerable situation. It doesn't occur to me that this might make me responsible for a dumb idea. I just say it. A client of mine pointed this out to me very explicitly. He said that the value of the project we did simply came down to giving the business a confident opinion they could get behind, and start working on. He said nothing of the "strategy" itself. Nothing of its intelligence, or effectiveness. Just the conviction behind it. I think there's a big lesson here. None of us generate our confidence in a vacuum. We're all seeking "permission" from someone to be bold. We're all looking for someone to share the burden and the responsibility. When you're doing strategy, THAT is your job. Sharing the burden. Taking the responsibility. Owning the risk. Absorbing the criticism. Heck, even being the scapegoat if it comes to it. THAT'S the game. Not the strategy itself, that's just your "tool". Your actual craft is sticking your head on the block, and saying what you really think. For myself, I take no credit for this skill, because it's accidental. A quirk, like I said. But if for you it isn't natural, that's OK. You can cultivate it, consciously. And if you do, this is what people will pay you for. Because at the end of the day, it's what they really want. __ 👍 Like this? ♻ Repost it! :) #strategy #founder #ceo

I've seen hundreds of strategies. Most are terrible. But NOT because they contain terrible thinking. Far from it. The thinking is often sound. They have a much more fundamental issue than that, which is really hard to avoid. Read this to find out what it is. And what to do about it. __ P.s. this is from my "strategy secrets" series. To get them all be sure to hit follow, and the notification bell 🔔 👍 Like this? ♻ Repost it! :) #strategy #ceo #founder