If plans don’t always pan out, how can we best prepare for the future? In this episode, Rich sits down with Dr. Frederik G. Pferdt who was Google’s first Chief Innovation Evangelist and is now a Stanford educator and an Executive-in-Residence and Visiting Fellow at NYU Stern. In this conversation, he shares insights into how to ritualize and embody cultural values, how to prepare for the future and the power of choosing to show up.

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“Instead of planning, we should invest more in preparing. Because planning is usually external. It's timelines, it's spreadsheets, it's steps, it's milestones, all of those things. But preparing is internal. It's your mind state, it's your emotional readiness to adapt.”

“ Innovation is a permission problem, not an idea problem. People don't need more creativity. They need more psychological safety to use it.”

 ”If you wanna create an environment for innovation, I would recommend using rituals and not rules. Rituals are sticky and they're human… Leaders have specific values in an organization that they wanna activate, bring to life. I think rituals are the best way to actually do that.”

Practice Makes Profit: Making collaboration seamless by assessing alignment.

League of Strategic Minds [listener question]:    What strategy myths hold organizations back from being more successful?

Winsights: Ideas for Advantage:     Jeff Bezos, founder of Amazon, said, “I bet 70 percent of the innovation we do focuses on slightly improving a process. That incremental invention is a huge part of what makes Amazon tick.” Do you and your team have a process to stimulate innovative thinking throughout the year so that you're always providing new value to your customers? Innovate and evolve or risk becoming obsolete.

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(00:00) Deep Dive Interview with Frederik

(47:34) Practice Makes Profit

(50:34) League of Strategic Minds

(53:16) Winsights, Ideas for Advantage

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Links:

Submit a question for Rich to the League of Strategic Minds: https://www.strategyskills.com/strategic-minds-podcast/

Frederik Pferdt on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/fgpferdt/

Strategic Quotients Assessment: https://www.strategyskills.com/strategic-quotient-assessment/

Rich Horwath on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/richhorwath/

Rich Horwath on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@RichHorwath

Rich Horwath on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/richhorwathceo/

Strategic Thinking Institute Website: https://www.strategyskills.com/

Inc. Magazine’s Top 4 book for 2024: STRATEGIC Book: https://www.amazon.com/Strategic-Direction-Advantage-Executive-Excellence/dp/1394215339

New executive development platform: Strategic Fitness System: http://www.Strategic-Fitness-System.com Sign up for Rich’s free Strategic Thinker Newsletter: https://www.strategyskills.com/subscribe/

[Subscribe to the Podcast] On Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/strategic-minds/id1748877976

On Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/57wbZTtLJhznc4OBCe0OE6?si=c2c74bbb9b4340e0&nd=1&dlsi=f9d56ce5aafd4941

What military strategies and tactics can business leaders leverage to position their companies for success? In this episode, Rich sits down with four-star General Robert Brown, President and CEO of the Association of the United States Army. General Brown is an experienced commander who has led at every level, from platoon through Army Service Component Command, leading a group of over 100,000 soldiers. In this conversation, he discusses military strategy and best practices for navigating the modern Fog of War, sharing his insights on red teaming, after action reviews, and leadership principles.

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“Too much information has become the fog of war. It used to be not enough. Now it's too much… Now you've got to look through haystacks of information, thousands of haystacks of information, to try to find that golden needle in the haystack that will help you make a decision.”

“ I've seen somebody say to me: ‘Here’s my strategy, it’s 15 pages.’ And it's like, hey, it's gonna fail, You might as well stop. Start again. Can't be 15. Nobody's gonna read it.”

“ The key is creating a learning environment where people want to learn and that after action review helps you learn and overcome those issues that may be buried if you didn't pull them out. It's like pulling a band aid off. You can't be thin skinned. Sometimes it's tough.”

Practice Makes Profit: Increasing team velocity through a decision inventory.

League of Strategic Minds [listener question]:   What's the best way to tell if someone is strategic?

Winsights: Ideas for Advantage:    Sun Tzu, the Chinese general and philosopher, wrote, “Do not repeat the tactics which have gained you one victory, but let your methods be regulated by the infinite variety of circumstances.” Are you and your team repeating the same tactics year after year and expecting some type of miraculous change?  Carve out time to think strategically about the changes in your market and with your customers. Stop procrastinating and start innovating.

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(00:00) Deep Dive Interview with General Brown

(54:57) Practice Makes Profit

(56:17) League of Strategic Minds

(57:31) Winsights, Ideas for Advantage

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Links:

Submit a question for Rich to the League of Strategic Minds: https://www.strategyskills.com/strategic-minds-podcast/

General Brown on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/robert-brooks-brown-1981usma/

AUSA.org: https://www.ausa.org/

Strategic Quotients Assessment: https://www.strategyskills.com/strategic-quotient-assessment/

Rich Horwath on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/richhorwath/

Rich Horwath on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@RichHorwath

Rich Horwath on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/richhorwathceo/

Strategic Thinking Institute Website: https://www.strategyskills.com/

Inc. Magazine’s Top 4 book for 2024: STRATEGIC Book: https://www.amazon.com/Strategic-Direction-Advantage-Executive-Excellence/dp/1394215339

New executive development platform: Strategic Fitness System: http://www.Strategic-Fitness-System.com Sign up for Rich’s free Strategic Thinker Newsletter: https://www.strategyskills.com/subscribe/

[Subscribe to the Podcast] On Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/strategic-minds/id1748877976

On Spotify

: https://open.spotify.com/show/57wbZTtLJhznc4OBCe0OE6?si=c2c74bbb9b4340e0&nd=1&dlsi=f9d56ce5aafd4941

What are the business techniques leaders can learn from a Chess Master CEO and how should they be thinking about the future of AI?

In this episode, Rich sits down with Alan Trefler, a chess master and the Founder and CEO of Pegaystems, the Enterprise Transformation Company that helps organizations Build for Change® with enterprise AI decisioning and workflow automation. Alan has earned multiple patents and overseen the expansion of Pega from start-up to a $1.3+ billion, global, public company with about 6,000 employees. In this episode, he discusses the lessons he has taken from chess into business, and how he thinks companies should be strategically thinking about AI.

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“The chess master will look and identify a set of candidates. They don't just stare at the position and magically figure out what to do. They say, ‘hey, here are three, four, five things that appear to be credible alternatives’ and then very methodically dig through them to figure out which might be the best one or what the holes are.”

“In the four decades of Pega’s existence, we've done five complete technology shifts….

And every single one of those encompass the risk of doing something that was materially different. And there's always risk when you're doing something the first time, or you're doing something that is hard. Ultimately I think evaluating those risks is key, but you also need to think about the risk of not making a change.”

“If you think of AI as an accelerant, as a way to, for example, tell you something about your business that you should make better and then you have the chance with your team to weigh in and don't necessarily do what the AI is telling you, but use the AI as a stimulus. Boy, you can use the AI as it exists now, and it can profoundly change the way a business works.”

Practice Makes Profit: Increasing productivity and efficiency by scoring and categorizing your interactions.

League of Strategic Minds [listener question]:  What are the keys to running a good strategy offsite meeting?

Winsights: Ideas for Advantage:  Jack Welch, former CEO of GE, said, “When the rate of change inside a company is slower than the rate of change outside, the end is in sight. The only question is when.” Are you and your team making changes internally in your thinking, processes, resource allocation, and structure each and every quarter?

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(00:44) Deep Dive Interview with Alan Trefler

(43:50 Practice Makes Profit

(45:48) League of Strategic Minds

(48:27) Winsights, Ideas for Advantage

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Links:

Submit a question for Rich to the League of Strategic Minds: https://www.strategyskills.com/strategic-minds-podcast/

Alan Trefler on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/alantrefler/

Pegasystems: https://www.linkedin.com/company/pegasystems/

Rich Horwath on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/richhorwath/

Rich Horwath on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@RichHorwath

Rich Horwath on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/richhorwathceo/

Strategic Thinking Institute Website: https://www.strategyskills.com/

Inc. Magazine’s Top 4 book for 2024: STRATEGIC Book: https://www.amazon.com/Strategic-Direction-Advantage-Executive-Excellence/dp/1394215339

New executive development platform: Strategic Fitness System: http://www.Strategic-Fitness-System.com Sign up for Rich’s free Strategic Thinker Newsletter: https://www.strategyskills.com/subscribe/

[Subscribe to the Podcast] On Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/strategic-minds/id1748877976

On Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/57wbZTtLJhznc4OBCe0OE6?si=c2c74bbb9b4340e0&nd=1&dlsi=f9d56ce5aafd4941

How can you use the principles of neurosurgery to maximize your leadership performance?

In this episode, Rich sits down with Dr. Theodore Schwartz, a pioneering neurosurgeon at Weill Cornell Medicine, known for developing minimally invasive techniques for brain tumor and epilepsy surgery.

Dr. Schwartz explores the mental and physical preparation required for surgery, navigating the challenge of making hundreds of cascading decisions and cultivating the personal resilience needed to persevere in such a high stakes environment.

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“I often say to the residents when we're operating, ‘Don't forget to listen to the tumor.’ And they're like, ‘What do you mean?’ I'm like, ‘You have to listen to the tumor. The tumor is telling you where it's going to hold on and where it's going to let you go. And you can't always impose your will on the tumor, but you have to listen to it and see what it's telling you, and react to that to change your plan.’ So you have to be receptive to the information coming in in order to create the most productive plan to move forward.”

“Although we erect a certain amount of emotional armor to deal when things go wrong, you then have to also be very, very sensitive and be able to let down that armor and be a human being.”

“And the question is, how do you put yourself in that mental space and in that physical space to function at a hundred percent, literally three days a week, I'm operating, you know, 48 weeks a year. Going on 25 years, right? I mean, it's just, it's relentless. It's every day. You have to show up because you have to be there for your patient.”

Practice Makes Profit: Assessing competition using the competitive landscape framework.

League of Strategic Minds [listener question]: What's the best way to communicate strategy?

Winsights: Ideas for Advantage: Sarah Blakely, self made billionaire and CEO of Spanx said, “Insights are gifts from the universe. Every time I have them, I capture them right away. The more that you write them down and pay attention to them, the stronger that the gift and the connection will become.” Where are you recording your insights and how often are you reviewing these insights to transform them into new value?

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(00:40) Deep Dive Interview with Dr. Ted Schwartz

(045:42) Practice Makes Profit

(47:22) League of Strategic Minds

(49:21) Winsights, Ideas for Advantage

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Links:

Submit a question for Rich to the League of Strategic Minds

Theodore Schwartz on LinkedIn

Gray Matters: A Biography of Brain Surgery

Rich Horwath on LinkedIn

Rich Horwath on YouTube

Rich Horwath on Instagram

Strategic Thinking Institute Website

Inc. Magazine’s Top 4 book for 2024: STRATEGIC Book

New executive development platform: Strategic Fitness System Sign up for Rich’s free Strategic Thinker Newsletter [Subscribe to the Podcast] On Apple Podcasts

On Spotify