The Stigma Around Strategy
When I say the word “strategy”… what comes to mind?
For many, the word conjures up imagery of a tense boardroom full of important people and high-powered leadership debates about “one-way door” choices: Entering a new market, buying another company, or making some big, irreversible investment. The kind of choices accompanied by lots of PowerPoint slides with perfectly-formatted bar graphs and squint-worthy footnotes of legalese in small font.
You know, executive stuff.
An example: Ever seen Margin Call? (If not, and if you are even the least bit interested in the world of finance and investing, please add it to your list.) The movie’s pivotal scene features a midnight meeting of an investment bank’s leadership team. They are facing a crisis, and the stakes are high. They have just discovered a time bomb hidden within their balance sheet: Billions of dollars of toxic mortgage-backed securities threatening not only their company’s solvency, but the stability of the entire global financial system. Times are tough.