All Intelligence Briefings that have been published by Rodenberg Tillman & Associates can be found here.
The potential hostile takeovers of Unilever and AkzoNobel were a wake-up call for their respective boards of management and boards of directors, providing a reason for both companies to act, however, both moved in the wrong direction, by selling-off parts of their companies, and of course via cost-cutting. Two easily-implemented actions which helped improve shareholder value. The Big Egos at the top were no doubt very proud of themselves to have made a decision. Together with my co-author, Dr. Antoinette Rijsenbilt, we described those too Big Egos in numerous cases in our 2015 book “Big Boys Big Egos and Strategic Intelligence”.
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Asking the right questions is the biggest issue to challenge top management. Examples of crucial questions include: how long will our sources of competitive advantage survive in the face of technological shifts? How will changing customer and societal expectations affect our business models? What does it mean to be an international company when the benefits of international integration are under intense scrutiny?
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The French writer Charles Maurras (1868-1952) believed there were ‘Two Frances’: one was the ‘real’ France, and the other the ‘legal’ France. The ‘real country’ is the rural France of church clocks, traditions and native people fused with their ancestral soil, versus the ‘legal country’ which is the secular republic run by functionaries conspiring for foreign interests. When sufficient people in the country come to understand the failure of ‘legal’ France, they will want the ‘real’ France back. That will be true in countries all over Europe. As Marine Le Pen stated: “France will be led by a woman, either me or Mrs. Merkel”
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It has been instructive to see the following three things happening which people tend to accept far too easily: how effective are Boards of Directors, and what of their responsibility and accountability in controlling and monitoring their Boards of Management? It seems they are not effective at all, most have no idea of what is really going on, and what new challenges that are facing.
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Economic indicators have improved since the summer of 2016, resulting in an accelerating positive level of economic performance in Europe and the other OECD-countries. Entrepreneurs and consumers are getting back into a good mood. The professionals in government, banks and other institutes did not see this coming. In our strategic intelligence best practices, we use the ‘Strategy as Active Waiting’ management tool to identify early indicators of change and create possible courses of action.
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An important issue in HBR in March/April 2017, dealt with information that challenges your assumptions and allows you to perceive a looming threat or opportunity. When a dramatic shift is on the horizon, the first indications may usually appear in ambiguous events on the fringes of the market. A key problem is getting information that senior management have not demanded because they do not know how to ask for it. Often, this may be a development brewing that may ultimately redraw the lines of competition for the future. One way to describe the unanticipated risks became famous in 2002 as ‘unknown unknowns’, thanks to Donald Rumsfeld, the former US Secretary of Defense.
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The statements above come from McKinsey in March 2017 writing about strategic planning. How come? People are overly confident and optimistic, and informed people are even more confident (1). No one was ever promoted for putting forward a plan whose growth forecasts didn’t sail upwards? (2). Executives constantly tell themselves that they need an ambitious vision to inspire great performance (3). But when the strategy outcome is not realized after the first year, attribution bias usually kicks in: one simply blames the circumstances or others, but never oneself.
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Dr. Arthur Laffer is known for his famous ‘Laffer Curve’. He was a member of President Reagan’s Economic Policy Board and an advisor to Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher. In January 2017, he visited the Netherlands and made statements to the effect that “governments are corrupt to the bone”, and the EU is “a state-run organization where the people don’t have a vote”. Arthur Laffer is correct, but what is of crucial concern is the non-critical attitude of the media and journalists.
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It is interesting to analyze the research of Professor Vijay Govindarajan published in Harvard Business Review in 12/2016, which deals with some 29,700 companies listed on US stock markets. Companies listed before 1970 had a 92% chance of surviving for the next five years. However, those companies listed from 2000 to 2010 had only a 63% chance, despite the dotcom bust and the Great Recession.
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Increasingly, ‘experts’ limit themselves by just giving their opinion. We saw this happening when CNN broadcast their opinion about Trump and his connections with Russia two hours before the press conference at 5 pm on Wednesday 11th January, 2017. CNN’s ‘breaking news’ resulted in complete chaos.
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