The Strategy Skills Podcast: Strategy | Leadership | Critical Thinking | Problem-Solving

585: Former Goldman Sachs Executive, Erin Coupe, on Rituals for Success, Meditation, and Self-Leadership

Former Goldman Sachs executive Erin Coupe shares how she transformed her life and career by replacing routines with rituals, practicing meditation, and stepping into self-leadership.   In this episode of the Strategy Skills Podcast, Kris Safarova and Erin dive deep into practical lessons for entrepreneurs, consultants, and online business owners who want more clarity, energy, and independence.   Based on her book, I Can Fit That In: How Rituals Transform Your Life, Erin explains how to: Build rituals that fuel focus, creativity, and business growth. Use meditation to calm your mind and access deeper ideas. Lead yourself first — so you can lead teams, clients, and businesses better. Align achievement with values to avoid burnout and emptiness. See AI not just as a tool for efficiency, but as a partner in self-discovery.   This conversation is perfect for online business owners, consultants, authors, and executives building a life and career on their own terms.   Learn more about Erin here: https://www.erincoupe.com/ 📚 Get Erin’s book, I Can Fit That In, here: https://www.erincoupe.com/i-can-fit-that-in   Here are some free gifts for you:   Overall Approach Used in Well-Managed Strategy Studies free download: www.firmsconsulting.com/OverallApproach   McKinsey & BCG winning resume free download: www.firmsconsulting.com/resumepdf   Enjoying this episode? Get access to sample advanced training episodes here: www.firmsconsulting.com/promo

584: ESSEC Business School Professor on How Geopolitics Shapes Corporate Strategy

Srividya Jandhyala, professor of management at ESSEC Business School and author of The Great Disruption, offers a clear framework for how geopolitics is reshaping corporate strategy. Her central thesis is direct: “The fundamental idea, ‘Where are you from?’—the nationality of the company—is the defining feature of the type of reactions you face from all stakeholders, not just governments, but also customers, suppliers, and clients”.   She explains why geopolitics now sits inside business decisions rather than adjacent to them. Corporate choices create externalities that trigger responses from states and nonmarket actors. For example, decisions around semiconductors illustrate how commercial moves collide with concerns about national security and dependence in key markets. The implication is that access, permissions, and standards increasingly compete with price and product as decisive variables.   Jandhyala distills four structural foundations every multinational should monitor: Market access — Where tariffs, export controls, or rivalries may close doors. Level playing field — Corporate nationality can tilt advantage or disadvantage against competitors. Investment security — Whether assets, workforce, and property rights will be safe and returns can be repatriated. Institutional alignment — The “USB vs. power plug” analogy: some systems work seamlessly, while others clash. Geopolitics is increasingly a contest of standards   Practical Takeaways Build a repeatable discipline. Go beyond headline news by scanning developments, personalizing them to the firm’s footprint, planning responses, and pivoting as conditions change. Map exposure by corporate nationality. Quantify where origin shapes market permissions, customer sentiment, or partner constraints. Treat corporate diplomacy as a core capability. Relationship-building with governments and stakeholders now consumes significant CEO time, creating both opportunities and trade-offs. For CEOs: View geopolitical flux as a field for advantage, not just risk. “Be imaginative about how you can exploit your corporate nationality, your position in the value chain, and your global market presence.” For middle managers: Expect new roles and metrics; government engagement, redundancy planning, and cross-functional information brokering are becoming central. Use the right cognitive frame. Executives must decide explicitly whether and where geopolitics deserves share of mind, recognizing that equally astute observers may reach different conclusions. Jandhyala’s counsel is rigorous but pragmatic: geopolitics is now part of the operating environment. Companies that treat it as noise will miss risks and opportunities. Those that build structural awareness and corporate diplomacy into strategy will be better positioned to compete when “permissions, politics, and standards” define the terms of play.   📚 Get Srividya’s book, The Great Disruption, here: https://shorturl.at/SWrdT   Here are some free gifts for you: Overall Approach Used in Well-Managed Strategy Studies free download: www.firmsconsulting.com/OverallApproach   McKinsey & BCG winning resume free download: www.firmsconsulting.com/resumepdf   Enjoying this episode? Get access to sample advanced training episodes here: www.firmsconsulting.com/promo

583: The Four Pillars of Elite Teams (with Colin M. Fisher)

In this rigorous and insight-rich episode, Dr. Colin Fisher, author of The Collective Edge, deconstructs high-performing teams using decades of organizational research and field-tested frameworks. If you lead, manage, or influence teams, the insights here can recalibrate how you build and guide collaboration.   We explore four foundational elements (Composition, Goals, Tasks, and Norms) and dismantle prevalent myths that often derail even experienced leaders.   Key insights include: Composition: A team’s effectiveness begins with clarity. In a landmark study, only 7% of top management teams agreed on how many people were actually on their team. “We can’t compose the team thoughtfully unless we agree on who’s in the team in the first place.” The ideal team size? 4.5 people. Why? It balances task performance and member satisfaction, minimizing coordination cost while maximizing cohesion. Goals: Most teams fall apart not because of conflict, but because “members don’t share the same understanding of what the group’s goals are.” Dr. Fisher emphasizes that goals must be clear, challenging, and consequential, repeated often, and refined constantly. Tasks: Don’t assign group work to solo tasks. Effective team tasks must require interdependence and diverse expertise. Leaders must provide “clear goals but autonomy over process.” Micromanagement erodes both accountability and innovation. Norms: Often invisible yet decisive. Norms around psychological safety and information sharing distinguish resilient teams from dysfunctional ones. Without them, even the most capable groups collapse under miscommunication or fear of speaking up.   Dr. Fisher’s core thesis is deceptively simple: The secret sauce is sustained attention to the basics. His research confirms that elite leaders are not mystical intuitives but methodical questioners and attentive listeners.   If you care about sustainable performance and intelligent team design, this conversation delivers a precise blueprint.   📚 Get Colin’s book, The Collective Edge, here: https://shorturl.at/91Khp   Here are some free gifts for you: Overall Approach Used in Well-Managed Strategy Studies free download: www.firmsconsulting.com/OverallApproach   McKinsey & BCG winning resume free download: www.firmsconsulting.com/resumepdf   Enjoying this episode? Get access to sample advanced training episodes here: www.firmsconsulting.com/promo

582: McKinsey's Venkat Atluri, How to thrive in the ecosystem economy (Strategy Skills classics)

Venkat Atluri, McKinsey senior partner and coauthor of The Ecosystem Economy: How to Lead in the New Age of Sectors Without Borders, explains how value creation is shifting from stand-alone enterprises to coordinated networks of collaborators. Drawing on two decades advising leaders in technology, media, and telecom, he outlines what makes ecosystem businesses distinct from traditional conglomerates—and the governance required to make them work at scale.   Atluri emphasizes that ecosystems aren’t about diversification for its own sake, but about following a customer-led thread: “Start with the customer and then follow the thread—what other problems does that customer have that you can solve together with partners?”   Key Insights from the Conversation Beyond Suppliers: Many firms mistake a supplier list or procurement process for an ecosystem. Atluri is clear: “A supplier list is not an ecosystem. An ecosystem is about mutual value creation and sharing in the upside.” Role Clarity Matters: Some firms will anchor the platform, continuously raising the bar for developers and users. Others will participate as contributors, protecting privacy, quality, and customer experience. Scale only comes when “responsibilities, incentives, and accountability” are explicit. Discipline in Operating Models: He advises executives to integrate ecosystem thinking into strategy, but then run deeper, dedicated workstreams to define roles, economics, and governance. Competition Is Ecosystem vs. Ecosystem: Scenario planning must account for new types of disruptors and ask, “What would an ecosystem leader do here?” Over time, Atluri expects the economy to consolidate into a few macro-ecosystems with multiple micro-ecosystems nested beneath them. History as a Control: Symbian and BlackBerry illustrate that large user bases are not moats. “Unless you keep raising the bar on your proposition, you lose.” Customer Experience Sets the Standard: Consumer expectations now apply in B2B as well: “If something doesn’t work out of the box, that tells you the company is focused on itself, not the customer.” 🎯 Practical Takeaways for Senior Leaders Map a customer segment’s biggest problems and use that to prioritize expansion. Deliberately choose whether to anchor a platform or participate in one—and align capital and talent accordingly. Replace vendor transactions with value-sharing constructs that reward partners for enlarging the pie. Establish governance, metrics, and cultural norms that enable collaboration at scale. Continuously improve the platform to keep developers, customers, and partners engaged. Atluri’s message is simple but powerful: “Ecosystems win when they deliver ever-rising value to customers and fair economics to contributors.” Companies that treat ecosystems as procurement exercises will stall. Those that treat them as strategic systems will build compounding advantages over time.   📚 Get Venkat’s book, The Ecosystem Economy, here: https://shorturl.at/XawOb   Here are some free gifts for you:   Overall Approach Used in Well-Managed Strategy Studies free download: www.firmsconsulting.com/OverallApproach   McKinsey & BCG winning resume free download: www.firmsconsulting.com/resumepdf   Enjoying this episode? Get access to sample advanced training episodes here: www.firmsconsulting.com/promo

581: President of the Sy Syms Foundation on Legacy, Leadership, and Family Enterprise

Marcy Syms, former CEO of Syms Corporation and president of the Sy Syms Foundation, reflects on leadership, governance, and the responsibilities of stewarding a family-founded, publicly traded business. Her perspective blends the operational discipline of retail with long-term thinking shaped by philanthropy and board service.   Syms underscores that organizational resilience rests on clear governance, candid communication, and leaders willing to face hard choices directly. As she puts it, “Leaders are not tested when things are going well—they’re tested when the pressure is on and they have to make tough decisions.”   Key insights from the discussion include: Governance as Stewardship Boards must challenge assumptions and safeguard alignment between values, accountability, and performance. “The role of an independent director is not to be a cheerleader, it’s to really be a steward.” Succession in Family Enterprises Generational expectations can create friction with shareholder responsibilities. Codifying roles, rules of engagement, and equity structures helps prevent conflict. “If you don’t write it down, you’re going to end up with misunderstandings.” Retail as a Proving Ground Syms draws lessons from decades in a competitive industry, highlighting the need to balance cost discipline with customer orientation and agility in adapting to change. Philanthropy with Rigor Through the Sy Syms Foundation, she illustrates how philanthropy can extend corporate values into society when managed with the same discipline as business strategy. “Philanthropy isn’t just giving money away, it’s about investing in ideas and people with the same rigor you bring to business.” Authenticity in Leadership For Syms, credibility is earned through constancy: “People watch what you do over time. If you stay true to your principles, that’s how you build trust.” This conversation provides senior executives and board members with a grounded perspective on balancing family legacy, fiduciary responsibility, and societal contribution. It offers practical lessons in governance discipline, leadership maturity, and aligning enterprise with enduring values.   📚 Get Marcy’s book, Leading with Respect, here: https://shorturl.at/V0zJ3   Here are some free gifts for you:   Overall Approach Used in Well-Managed Strategy Studies free download: www.firmsconsulting.com/OverallApproach   McKinsey & BCG winning resume free download: www.firmsconsulting.com/resumepdf   Enjoying this episode? Get access to sample advanced training episodes here: www.firmsconsulting.com/promo