Friday, 31 January 2025

Seth's Blog : What's for breakfast?

Peter Drucker didn't say “culture eats strategy for breakfast, ” but reality rarely gets in the way of a good quote. But what does it mean? I think what 'not Drucker' meant was that MBA tactics will always be subverted by the power of systems, and ...
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What’s for breakfast?

Peter Drucker didn’t say “culture eats strategy for breakfast,” but reality rarely gets in the way of a good quote.

But what does it mean?

I think what ‘not Drucker’ meant was that MBA tactics will always be subverted by the power of systems, and that systems disguise themselves as culture (“what are things like around here.”)

So a more accurate restatement of the fictional quote would be, “Systems eat tactics for breakfast.”

Maybe that would have been a better subtitle for my book.

PS I was on Tim Ferriss’ podcast this week. You can see 500 of my video and podcast appearances here.

In the words of Harry Truman, “42% of all the quotes on the internet are misattributed.”

        

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Thursday, 30 January 2025

Seth's Blog : What sort of progress?

Nothing stays still. Relative to the rest of the world, even something that's not moving is changing. It's tempting to talk about not making fast enough progress. But it's far more useful to ask which direction we're progressing. Often, people will ...
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What sort of progress?

Nothing stays still. Relative to the rest of the world, even something that’s not moving is changing.

It’s tempting to talk about not making fast enough progress.

But it’s far more useful to ask which direction we’re progressing.

Often, people will point to the velocity of the change they’re making without pausing to consider the direction of that change.

Strategy is the hard work we do before we do the rest of the hard work. Where to?

        

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