Customers have choices. Business leaders and funders have choices. Donors have choices. If you can't articulate what makes your approach distinct from everyone else doing similar work, someone else will get the call. Key Takeaways Strategic Differentiators (SDs) are the 1-3 choices that make your approach distinct and better than alternatives They sit between your Mission/Vision and your goals, bridging what you do with how you choose to do it Organizations with clear SDs thr

One year ago, I was laid off from Microsoft after 16+ years. And honestly? I wasn't devastated. That surprised some people. It surprised me a little too. But as I sat with it, I started to understand why. I think the answer might be useful if you're navigating a transition of your own. The conversation I kept having Every career discussion I had at Microsoft ended the same way. My manager would ask where I wanted to go, and I'd say some version of the same thing: Someday, I w

More often than not, investments in strategy pay huge dividends to teams, senior leaders, customers, and funders. But there have been times when that’s not the case. Years ago, I was invited to participate in a weeklong strategy conference for a team of senior leaders invited from all over the world. Impressive titles, big ambitions, real energy in the room. But something was off. I raised concerns on day two: there had been little discovery, prep work, or competitive analysi

The Locked Gate Two years ago in a Seattle neighborhood, my friend Samantha had started to feel disconnected from the community. She suggested we revive an old P‑Patch on a fenced lot as a way to bring people together. She invited all of us to weekly Saturday Garden Days, and most everyone loved the idea. But the first week we walked over only to find the gate secured by a well-aged padlock. Nobody had the long‑lost key, so most of us headed home and were pulled right back in

Recently I was truly inspired listening to Harvard Business School professor Felix Oberholzer‑Gee explain the Value Stick in his Parlor Room interview. For mission driven businesses and nonprofits, the idea offer something rare: a simple, practical way to answer the all-important question: What actually creates value for the people we serve? The Value Stick Key Concepts A Value Stick is created by the gap between willingness to pay and willingness to sell. Most internal con

Every leadership team eventually hits the same wall: too many good ideas, not enough time, and no shared way to decide what actually matters. I’ve watched groups burn hours debating frameworks, scoring systems, and elaborate spreadsheets that promise rigor but mostly create fatigue. Over the years, I’ve come back to one tool again and again because it cuts through the noise and gets teams aligned quickly. I call it the Prioritization Matrix, and it’s the simplest, most reliab

We see it everywhere right now. In politics. In companies. In our daily lives. Even in volunteer settings. Two very different types of people are rising to the top: those who quietly question whether they deserve their success, and those who rise without a trace of self-doubt. One group strengthens culture. The other corrodes it. I have seen this firsthand across my career. When Satya Nadella became CEO at Microsoft, the culture shifted toward integrity, accountability, and r

At 8:47 a.m., the Teams messages were already stacking up. Emails were landing like rain. New requests were coming in like an avalanche. No one was saying “no." A customer escalation. A last‑minute ask from leadership. A policy update that needed communication right now . Another fire, then another. Sound familiar? Many years ago, I managed a small team—six smart, capable staff alongside a dozen professional service vendors—responsible for critical operations inside a growing

I learned young that a campfire needs more than a spark — it takes hands gathering wood, someone blocking the wind, and a shared “let’s make this happen.” A flame catches fastest when the effort is collective. When the fire lights quickly and burns strongly, everyone wins. The same is true professionally: you can’t fuel a winning strategy without inclusion. In this post I'd like to share what I learned about the importance of culture to successful strategies. What I've learne

For most of my career, I sat inside large, complex organizations watching how strategy works. Or doesn’t. I paid attention to the patterns: what helps teams thrive, what quietly erodes momentum, and why some strategies take root while others fade or fail. All of that learning was preparing me to build Better World Strategy. But first, here’s what I want you to know as you advance your goals: You don’t need to figure everything out alone. You don’t need a huge budget to build