Foundstone Conversations

 “Strategy is a set of integrated choices.”“A plan is not a strategy.” This is our conversation with the world’s #1 management thinker Roger Martin.The former Dean of the Rotman School of Management & author of 13 books including Playing to Win and A New Way to Think.Roger's work in strategy, continues to leave a prominent mark globally in distilling down complex and often noisy concepts into crystal clear principles that can be applied in the real world.As a strategy advisory ourselves, Foundstone Advisory incorporates many of Rogers break-through concepts and insights into our own practice across customer & market insights, strategy, planning and execution.In our conversation, we get Roger's unique perspective on:-Why he does what he does -A Plan is not a Strategy-The pitfalls of Revenue forecasting -Strategy & Execution -Should I study for an MBA?-Strategy & DataWe hope you enjoy this episode and get some really practical how to do Strategy in your own leadership toolbox and organisation.

In this episode, we chat with Brad Krauskopf, Founder and CEO of The Hub. The Hub is Australia’s largest privately-owned co-working provider.We kick off our conversation with how Brad works through making tough strategy choices.Brad shares his practical experience with getting customer insights and how that helps the organisation to get clarity & the confidence to make the best strategy decisions. As a certified B-Corp, we also talk about the fundamentals of what a B-Corp is and what it actually means to be “Beyond just Profit” as he puts it. We talk about how business needs to work in with the community where it operates and explore ways to get the best mix of social, community and economic impact.There’s plenty of helpful tips in this episode on how to start opening up your strategy & culture to the broader community, customers and staff.I hope you enjoy the conversation and trust you'll get some really meaningful insights on how to apply practical strategy to your own leadership and organisation.

 In this episode, we chat with Jordan Colreavy, who’s the Head of Category Strategy at one of the world’s largest consumer goods companies L'OréalJordan gives some rare insights of how L’Oreal use a unique mix of both Intuition & creativity for strategy & execution across the business.He talks about how L'Oréal's French heritage and culture have a big influence on this – and how other organisation leaders can learn from this sort of approach.L’Oreal also captures unique customer insights and don’t let the traditional strategy ‘rulebook’ constrain them.We also cover the different ways that organisations can get unique customer and market insights from seemingly unrelated industries and subsectors. Jordan shares the example of L’Oreal and Red Bull – two very different sector players. And how they are working together to share and uncover unexpected insights though ideation conversations.And finally, Jordan talks about how collaboration is key, and how that means ‘opening up’ Strategy and involving the people who are going to actually execute it. There’s plenty of helpful tips in this episode on how to start Co-Creating strategy with customers and staff.We hope you get some really meaningful insights on how to apply practical strategy to your own leadership and organisation. 

Want to hear first hand, how to build a billion-dollar business?We had a recent conversation with David Shein, founder of Australia's first $ billion-technology company, to find out how.Now, as co-founder and partner of Our Innovation Fund, David is one of the best connected venture capital investors in the country.He's also the author of a book that's been released fairly recently  "The Dumbest Guy at the Table".  So, we talked about how his recent book came about, the subtext and personal stories to a number parts in the book.In our chat, David also shared many of the timeless principles that helped him grow his business including:1) How to really treat customers, staff and business partners in a way that will make all the difference.2) Examples of How he was able to make the tough strategy choices consistently over many years.3) How he and his leadership lead from the front to create a culture that inspired staff and also increased the bottom line.

It was great to have Wendy back for another conversation and this time, in her new role as the Executive Director Social Procurement and Impact with Social Traders. In this latest conversation, we dive deeper into the world of Social Enterprise.Wendy talks about her time in her previous role as the CEO of a Social Enterprise and some of the first-hand learning and experiences of how she grew that business significantly through Social Enterprise principles.In Foundstone's work with other Social Enterprise organisations, we see first-hand the direct influence Social Enterprises are having on the market, broader society, and how their new revenue growth is also accelerating through these principles.It's organisations and leaders like this who drive this meaningful work and impact that Foundstone are keen to get behind. Tune in to hear about:- What Social Enterprises truly are- Debunking myths and misconceptions- How this sector is having significant growth, with millennials leading the charge in this space- How organisations can be moving towards greater partnership with social enterprises, or become social enterprises themselves- Major government strategies across federal and state Australia

In this episode, we chat with Julia Hautz - the Professor of Strategic Management at the University of Innsbruck in Austria.Julia is the co-author of 'Open Strategy, a book that is taking the global strategy community by storm.Open Strategy, as Julia explains, means actively involving people from outside the C-suite in strategy deliberations.Both internal and external to the organisation.This can include customers, partners, suppliers, and even competitors.As well as those internal to the organisation, like front-line employees and various levels of staff from outside the C-Suite that haven't typically been involved in strategy in the past.We're seeing first-hand with our own clients that this type of approach to strategy is becoming essential to stay relevant and connected.These were some of our highlights from the conversation:- How the Open Strategy approach is helping leaders overcome their biases, and instead, co-design strategy with customers, partners and staff who are then more committed to implementing the changes.- How you can start to bring people outside your organisation directly into strategy development- How to get valuable insights from other seemingly unrelated industries.- Real-world examples of organisations using Open Strategy including the US Navy, CIA, and various other mid to small sized organisations from across Europe & the US.- How Serendipity relates to strategyWe hope you enjoy the conversation and trust you'll get some really meaningful insights of how you can start to build Open Strategy into your own approach.

In this episode, we talk to Ron Lesh, Managing Director of BGL Corporate Solutions, about why listening to our customers is important for any business.Having decades of experience under his belt, Ron also shares about common mistakes made by young businesses as well as other insights he's observed over the years.Tune into this episode to learn about how customer feedback is key to better innovation and customer relationships!

Did you know that millennials will make up 75% of the global workforce by 2025?It also may come as a surprise that the average tenure of millennials is over 3.5 years.Amy Smith, Founder of Aligned Tribe has plenty of experience working with executives and boards, helping them understand the millennial generation better.In this episode, Amy talks about why it's important to understand millennials beyond the stereotypes and how many executives may need to "unlearn" some of their perceptions that are simply not accurate.Listen to find out what trends Amy is observing in the workplace and learn how leaders can better engage with their millennial workforce through meaningful conversations.

Rather than pretending to know all the answers, leaders should be able to say "we don't know".That's the first step to 'discovering' strategy.The difference between 'discovery' and 'developing' strategy may seem subtle at first, but the approach can change everything.We held a live webinar with Dr. Graham Kenny, strategy expert and regular Harvard Business Review author, to find out the difference between 'developing' and 'discovering' strategy and how the right approach can have a significant impact.Graham has decades of knowledge and practical experience in strategy--from running businesses to hands-on consulting to driving the conversation in academia. Graham has many anecdotes and tips to share with leaders across various industries.Watch the recording of this live webinar to hear some of Graham's strategy recommendations, how to take an 'outside looking in' approach, and what that could look like.It is no secret that human-centred design principles are at the heart of what we do at Foundstone which is why we're dedicated to sharing this content with you. We're committed to creating a community that wants to learn and grow together, collaboratively. That means learning from you as well as doing what we can to keep you well-informed.The live comments and questions in our session were so good, that we purposefully de-railed our own agenda and questions. That's the way a real conversation should be!

Empathy; mental health; people-/human-centric; feelings; me, myself & I  — these aren't the words you typically hear in the same sentence as 'strategy' — let alone 'business strategy'. Mark Pollard addresses how strategy is more than what it is commonly referred to, 'business strategy', where we work within systems and processes that are rigid and too industry-specific. Strategy can be thought of deeper than that - it can even be applied to ourselves and our own mental health. Having this conversation with Mark was incredibly insightful and not to mention, refreshing. He breaks away from regular, filtered, "corporate speak" and finds new ways to invigorate this world of strategy that's been dominated by leaders who lead with a top-down approach rather than extending empathy and understanding of our co-workers' mental health.In this episode, he also challenges organisations' increasing dependence on data rather than real-life, human insights.