Finding The Hole In The Boat: The Four Essentials Of Strategic Thinking
Is your organization spending too much time seemingly rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic? Are the senior decision makers consistently voicing the need to make substantial change in the face of a complex and dynamic environment yet no real change takes place? Is the organization spending a great deal of time planning strategically but the answers to the questions keep coming out the same? Perhaps the problem is not with the answers, but with the questions. Perhaps strategic planning, a management process, is inappropriate for finding the path to change. Instead what is required is a leadership process, such as strategic thinking, that calls into question all the questions being asked.
Looking for the Right Questions
Simply stated, if an organization does not do strategic thinking before it does strategic planning, it is the same as rearranging those deck chairs. Why? Because in the end no one really cares where the deck chairs are positioned on the lounge deck if there is a great big hole in the boat, i.e., the big hole in the boat presents a much more pressing problem.
Creating Content for Articles or Ezines Effortlessly
The benefits of writing as a marketing strategy have been well documented. Articles build credibility, provide lots of links back to your website, and can generate business for you. All good stuff. This is all well and good as long as you have something to write about – right?
Finding content ideas can be one of the dilemmas that stops us from making the most of writing as a marketing opportunity. But I can assure you that each on you has enough content already on hand to write dozens of articles. You just need to know where to look.
Here are 5 areas you can look
Client questions
Any client who has ever asked you: “How would I ……” is giving you the basis for an article. Answering “how to” questions provides real world solutions to real situations, exactly what the reading public want to know about.
To turn a short answer into a longer article, simply:
* Begin with the background or context to the situation
* describe when and how the situation occurs