strategic thinking

If we ran a survey asking “are you biased?” we would find no one is. Bias is a characteristic of others, not of ourselves. It’s about you, not me. Which is ironic, and the point.

This is something I’ve learned from all those war games: Watch out for the war metaphor in your strategic thinking, and challenge it if you see it. The challenge doesn’t cost you anything. You can always go back to the war metaphor if you really think it works.

What can we learn about business diagnosis from TV’s nastiest doctor? Quite a bit. We take a look at Safeway and Supervalu pricing on our rounds.

“Darn right it was the predator [sic] lenders.” There’s a lesson there, a lesson we can use to help us move forward. However, the lesson has nothing to do with predators, lenders, lending, crises, or governors. It has to do with solving problems effectively, guarding against easy and satisfying assumptions.