If Porter Has 5 Forces, Kring Has 4 Principles

I have always been fascinated with how some small companies, that are under-resourced and deemed to be insignificant, can thrive and go on to dominate an industry. While some much larger, more powerful companies stall-out and eventually fail. Superior strategy explains a lot of these differences in the market place. Superior strategy makes it easier for a company to thrive, when resources are scarce or limited. And at the edges, all companies have limited resources. Even with borrowing.
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Target Stores (TGT) – Discovery Version of Kring Strategy Map

Years ago, I started work in a new position at the headquarters of a major retailer. The retailer is a competitor to Target Stores (TGT). Within the first few weeks of work I built a series of business strategy maps. I built a high-level one for the company I was working at. I built a detailed one for the product I was working on. And I built a discovery version of the KSM for Target Stores (TGT).

The strategy map I built for TGT I used to understand both the competitive landscape, and additional more specific detail regarding a competitor.
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Leadership, Strategy & Change Management

I was just part of a conversation regarding leadership, strategy and change management. The conversation felt very much like ones that I have had and have read about for decades.

A bunch of isolated bits of wisdom that didn’t seem to anchor to anything larger. Fragments that felt like they could swirl around forever without building toward a greater knowledge. And unless things change, these are the types of conversations we will continue to collectively have, until the end of time. Unless we end this nonsense.
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Change Management – Let’s just do it right and get on with it already!

Good news! If you want things to continue just the way they are, you don’t need to change anything. Just keep doing what you’re doing. You’re doing fine.

However if you want to make improvements, bad news. Making things better means making changes. And while typically the changes that need to be made aren’t even that big, many times the majority of the changes never stick.
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Big Data, Great! Now What Do We Do With It?

Seurat painted in dots. He painted in “data points”. When you stand with your nose an inch away from Seurat’s painting, all you see is a bunch of dots. It is only when you take a step back, that you see the patterns that the dots make. A river. A women with a parasol. And for some reason, a little monkey. This is what data is. A series of dots. However if you put the dots together and take a step back, you can see the business patterns the dots make.
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