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Tag Archives: thinking skills
Bad Strategy: Unintended Consequences
Green River ON a hike in The Canyon Lands, some of our mountain friends encountered the legendary river runner Moki Mac. At the time he was managing operations at Utah’s Dead Horse Point State Park, and was concerned for the safety of the growing number of recreational boaters running the nearby Green River. Because of the extreme conditions, to ensure survival in case of a mishap, boaters would have to get out of the canyon within one day. But there was no known one-day route out of the canyon, so he wanted one found. Sizing up my friends (John, Grant, … Continue reading
Posted in bad strategies, strategy design, strategy review Tagged bad strategy, brainstorming, Canyon Lands, cobra effect, cobras, creative thinking, devise, football helmet, Green River, how to, monkies, objective, side effects, strategy review, thinking skills, unintended consequences, Utah 6 Comments
Resources in Strategy; Lye Brook Wilderness
BOURN POND Its nice sitting in this tree. The sun has broken through intermittent clouds, switching on the brilliant leaves of my red maple. This is no ordinary tree. It’s a cage. The main trunk is normal for the first two or three feet. Then it splits into 5 sub-trunks that start horizontally for a couple of feet, then go straight up, creating a cage. Once inside it, your visual field is saturated red leaves. Gorgeous. The tree is on the shore of Bourn Pond in the Lye Brook Wilderness in southern Vermont; it’s the only place I’ve seen trees … Continue reading
Posted in Gray Area, strategy anatomy, strategy design, strategy elements Tagged Bourn Pond, creative thinking, devising, Gray Area, how to, Lye Brook Wilderness, resource, resourceful, silk, spider, survival, thinking skills, web 3 Comments
The Gray Area
Mt. Sopris The scene below is of Mount Sopris, a prominent feature of the Maroon Bells – Snowmass Wilderness in western Colorado. We’re here, you and I, because we’re doing a little reconnaissance for a flight in an altitude-limited light plane that will take us past that peak tomorrow morning. It’s a gorgeous day and getting here was an easy hike. We find ourselves in a benign, rather soft and idyllic scene: green, rolling hills, open woodlands; it’s sunny and the warm air has amped up the smell of the pines. We’re sitting here, taking in the mountain, brilliant in … Continue reading
Posted in Gray Area Tagged deception, elements, Gray Area, Mt. Sopris, noise, thinking skills 4 Comments
Escaping E. Berlin; A Simple Way to Devise Complex Strategies (1)
COLD WAR CHILLS The Wall came down in 1989. Over 20 years ago. It’s easy to forget what it was like for the people living on both sides of it at the time. NATO had a very important role during the time of The Wall, and Germany and America were especially close partners. Did you know that Germany had Air Force facilities in the U.S. (and still does)? During the later part of the Cold War, I had business with the German Air Force, and flew out of a tightly guarded German facility at Dulles Int’l. Airport. High cyclone fences … Continue reading
Posted in cool strategies, general strategy model, strategy design Tagged Achim Weyer, armor, Berlin Wall, car, Cold War, Cologne, complex strategy, crow, East Berlin, elements, General Strategy Model, Germany, how to, Luftwaffe, objectives diagram, opportunity, problem, security, solution, strategy definition, strategy diagram, sub machine guns, sub-objective, sub-strategy, thinking skills 5 Comments
How to Devise a Strategy: Affordable Coffee
We’re all wired to devise strategies. So you just have to put the right info into your head, and it will take care of the rest. Let it all sit there. Give your intuition an opportunity to do its work. You’re objective will create the pull that draws out the strategy. Your barriers and available resources, and their many possibilities, will shape it. It will come to you. Here’s an example of devising a strategy This method is easy, and makes sense. It follows the natural thinking sequence of problem > opportunity > solution. Situation: You like to drink a … Continue reading
Posted in strategy design Tagged coffee, elements, exploit, external factors, how to, mismatch, objective, opportunity, parties, popper, price, problem, resource, solution, thinking skills, timing, vulnerability 14 Comments
