2018-04-05 21:26
THE STORYJohn Philip Sousa (1854-1932) was considered to be the best composer and conductor of American marches who ever lived. His nickname was the “American March King.”When I… Read More
Blog Directory > Business Blogs > Careers & Industries Blogs > Planninga from Nanninga: A Strategic Planning careers-and-industries Blog >
Planninga From Nanninga: A Strategic Planning Blog
planninga-from-nanninga.blogspot.com
The blog uses simple analogies to discuss principles of strategic planning.
2018-02-13 18:13
One of the best strategy articles I have seen in a long time just came out from McKinsey. The summary of the article is this.Most companies are in the middle of the pack.Nearly all the profi… Read More
2018-01-25 17:59
THE STORYI think the scariest commercials on TV are sponsored by the companies that rebuild house foundations. They talk about how—if you neglect your house foundation—it will co… Read More
2017-12-15 20:20
THE STORYThere’s an old military saying that goes something like this: In peace time, military leaders prepare for the next war as if it is going to be played by the same rules as the… Read More
2017-11-21 14:59
THE STORYEarly in my career I worked for a retailer who was considering expansion into Utah. The company was concerned, because most people in Utah at the time were Mormons (members of the J… Read More
2017-10-09 19:23
THE STORYToday I went to the grand re-opening of an Aldi store. As you probably know, the reason for Aldi’s existence is to offer a limited assortment of groceries in a bare-bones, no… Read More
2017-09-12 21:40
THE STORYThere is a company I know of that desired two outcomes. First, they wanted a product mix skewed towards new products. Second, they wanted high returns on their investments.So this c… Read More
2016-12-01 13:25
THE STORYBack in the early 1970s, pianist and composer Claude Bolling had the original idea of recording an album that was a mixture of classical and jazz music. It was to feature Bolling on… Read More
2016-11-12 15:52
BACKGROUNDI recently saw a blog by the Cascade strategy software company entitled “The 5 Reasons Why 70% of Strategies Fail.” You can read it here.Since I disagree with their con… Read More
2016-11-11 13:21
BACKGROUNDI recently saw a blog by the Cascade strategy software company entitled “The 5 Reasons Why 70% of Strategies Fail.” You can read it here. Since I disagree with their co… Read More
2016-11-10 20:37
BACKGROUNDThis week, I saw a blog by the Cascade strategy software company entitled “The 5 Reasons Why 70% of Strategies Fail.” You can read it here.The title lured me in. Howeve… Read More
2016-11-01 21:11
THE STORYThere is a magical word in the English language. That word is “Normal.” Normal represents that which is to be expected: the routine, the average to which everything else… Read More
2016-10-14 14:21
THE STORYMy most recent blood test showed I was low in vitamin D, so I went to a healthy food store to look for vitamin D supplements. The man at the store said that to get the maximum benef… Read More
2016-09-22 18:08
THE STORYI was born with a larger than normal nasal cavity, which means that I have a better than average sense of smell. I haven’t decided yet if that is a good thing or a bad thing.O… Read More
2016-08-25 18:20
THE STORYWhen I was in Junior High School, we did an interesting science experiment. The teacher took a beaker and filled it full of marbles. He asked the class if we thought the beaker was… Read More
2016-08-21 20:41
THE STORYWay back when I was getting my MBA, the accepted rules for success in marketing went like this:1. Get an MBA in marketing from a top-tier business school.2… Read More
2016-08-19 15:46
THE STORYI was recently reading a posting on the Strategic Planning Society group’s site on Linkedin. It was titled “Forget strategy, innovation has replaced it!” The point… Read More
2016-07-20 22:20
THE STORYThere’s an old saying (originally attributed to Thomas Henry Huxley) that goes roughly like this: “If you get enough monkeys sitting at enough keyboards, one of them, by… Read More
2016-07-05 15:18
THE STORYI have a skateboard park near my home where lots of young boys like to hang out. The primary attraction at the skateboard park is a giant U-shaped surface. The idea is to start at t… Read More
2016-07-01 15:00
THE STORYAwhile back I was reading an article about depression. The first half of the article looked at what causes a person to be chronically depressed. It said that based on research, the… Read More
2016-06-08 17:29
THE STORYLast fall, when Jordan Spieth won the FedEx Cup of golfing, he earned $10 million. That’s a lot of money for a golfing match. It’s not typical. The winner of a typical g… Read More
2016-05-11 15:16
I just finished by latest book on strategic planning, called Tripped Up By Distractions. I want you to have it for free.To get the book in ebook format, go to: http://www.lulu.com/shop/… Read More
2016-04-23 17:57
INTRODUCTIONIn the last two blogs (here and here), we looked at (in general) an article USA Today published entitled “The 18 worst product flops of all time.” These flops include… Read More
2016-04-20 12:33
INTRODUCTIONIn the last blog, we looked at an article in USA Today article entitled “The 18 worst product flops of all time.” These flops included:1. Edsel by Ford Motor Co.2. To… Read More
2016-04-18 21:23
INTRODUCTIONOn April 16, 2016, USA Today had an article entitled “The 18 worst product flops of all time.” It was based on a study conducted by 24/7Wall St. to determine which we… Read More
2016-04-12 13:05
THE STORYOne time, I was talking to an expert on the subject of marketing to teenagers. She said research shows that most teenagers believe that in a relatively short time, they will become… Read More
2016-03-18 16:55
THE STORYWhen I brush my teeth, I just put my toothpaste on the toothbrush and put it in my mouth. I thought this was normal.Then I read an article about the research done by a toothpaste ma… Read More
2016-03-17 14:35
THE STORYThis past week I was at a large park. This park had a long jogging trail. I watched some of the joggers using the trail.Some joggers were moving effortlessly along the trail. It was… Read More
2015-10-12 13:09
TWO STORIES1. High School SurveyThe US government used to do an annual survey of high school students. The objective of the survey was to track things like the levels of drug use and sexual… Read More
2015-10-10 14:47
THE STORYOne of my favorite strategic planning stories is an interview of Steve Jobs by Richard Rumelt, a professor in strategy at the UCLA business school and a leader in his field. At the… Read More
2015-10-08 17:57
THE STORYImagine this conversation with an entertainment promoter. We’ll call him Bob.Bob: I’m so excited! I just booked a night to use the stage at Carnegie Hall. This is such a… Read More
2015-10-06 20:22
THE STORYA friend of mine recently explained to me how his parents survived a lifetime of farming. He said their farm tended to run on a five-year cycle. In general, over that five-year span… Read More
2015-09-16 18:57
THE STORYJessica and Amanda both owned a huge amount of clothes—so many that it became hard to find the right thing to wear. Therefore, Jessica and Amanda decided to get more scientifi… Read More
2015-08-28 21:48
BACKGROUNDThere has been a lot of discussion about how we have entered a “new economy” or a “post-capitalism business environment.” The idea is that businesses can no… Read More
2015-07-18 14:00
BACKGROUNDWe are currently going through a series of blogs on the types of statements which are more relevant to planning than the traditional financial statements (income statement, balance… Read More
2015-07-18 14:00
BACKGROUNDWe are currently going through a series of blogs on the types of statements which are more relevant to planning than the traditional financial statements (income statement, balance… Read More
2015-07-17 14:00
BACKGROUNDWe are currently going through a series of blogs on the types of statements which are more relevant to planning than the traditional financial statements (income statement, balance… Read More
2015-07-16 14:00
BACKGROUNDWe are currently going through a series of blogs on the types of statements which are more relevant to planning than the traditional financial statements (income statement, balance… Read More
2015-07-15 14:00
BACKGROUNDIn my last blog, I discussed why the traditional financial statements (income statement, balance sheet, cash flow) are inappropriate for planning. In this blog, we will look at one… Read More
2015-07-14 16:36
THE STORYI recently purchased a new smartphone. It came with a small booklet of instructions. The booklet gave me the information I needed to enjoy my phone.However, as useful as that phone… Read More
2015-06-08 17:34
THE STORYA few years ago, I went to a conference on Big Data put on by IBM. The first thing I noticed was that almost everyone attending (other than myself) looked younger than my children (… Read More
2015-05-27 19:22
THE STORYLet’s assume that Bob sells his house for $100,000. A few days later, the person Bob sold it to resells the house for $200,000. Then, a few days after that, the newest buyer r… Read More
2015-05-15 20:46
THE STORYI knew an executive who got a big bonus because he hit all his numbers. Unfortunately, he hit his numbers by totally ignoring the strategy.His strategic mandate was to spend a lot o… Read More
2015-05-14 18:51
I just got my 8th book converted to the EPUB format, so it can be read on multiple ebook devices. Actually, its my first book, called Fast Forward. I've updated some of the content for this… Read More
2015-05-13 11:58
I recently updated the content of seven of my books on strategy. In addition, I converted them into an EPUB format so that they can be easily read on a variety of electronic devices.You can… Read More
2015-04-25 14:42
THE STORYOver the course of my long career, I’ve been through a lot of job interviews—from both sides of the table. Whether I was hiring or trying to get hired, I’ve seen t… Read More
2015-03-30 11:54
THE STORYIt’s interesting to watch the debates between developers and preservationists. The developers say that if you invest a bunch of money to develop a wilderness area, you get a l… Read More
2015-03-19 12:39
THE STORYI have two cats. One cat has none of its claws. The other cat has all of its claws. If you want to pick up and move the cat with no claws, it is relatively easy. You just pick her u… Read More
2015-03-14 14:52
THE STORYEarlier this week, I was working out at my exercise club. They have a sign at the club asking everyone to wipe down the exercise machines after using them. To aid in the task, they… Read More
2015-01-28 16:49
THE STORYTo earn money during college, I worked on a landscaping crew. We had two types of mowers: large riding mowers and small trimmer mowers that you had to push. The riding mowers were g… Read More
2015-01-27 13:35
THE STORYWhen I was in college, I had a friend who was starting up a hobby of making wine. His early attempts were pretty bad.First, he would get impatient and stop the fermentation too soon… Read More
2015-01-20 01:19
THE STORYFor decades—in fact for most of the 20th Century—baseball was America’s sport. It captivated the minds of the people and was their sporting passion. Nothing else c… Read More
2015-01-12 17:15
THE STORYI love writing music. I’ve put together 16 CDs worth of music. The problem is that I have odd tastes in music. As a result, almost nobody else likes my music.I suppose I could… Read More
2014-12-01 22:51
THE STORYWhen I was a child, I visited a site where a famous US Civil War battle took place way back in the 1860s. As a souvenir, I got some imitation samples of “Confederate Money&rdq&hell…Read More
2006-06-07 11:16
THE STORYOne time, while vacationing in northern Minnesota, I stopped to see the big tourist attraction in Eveleth—the world’s largest free-standing hockey stick. The stick is 11… Read More
2006-06-07 11:16
THE STORYWell, here we are in the middle of March Madness, when Americans go nuts over college basketball. Millions of people choose who they think is going to win all the games. Warren Buff… Read More
2006-06-07 11:16
THE STORYBack when I was a young boy, my dad used to spend a lot of time driving across the state of Michigan to take care of things for his mother (my grandmother). Sometimes he would take… Read More
2006-06-07 11:16
THE STORYA retailer once asked me to look at the data to see how much sales increased after his stores were remodeled. After examining the data, I concluded that for most of the remodeled st… Read More
Subscribe to Planninga From Nanninga: A Strategic Planning
Get updates delivered right to your inbox!