The Blog
Long-form essays, field notes, and frameworks from the FIRMSconsulting team — published weekly.
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A strategy expert vs. a CEO
A strategy expert vs. a CEO I’m going to end today’s Strategy Insights by talking about a client and some of the challenges, successes and particularly one of the deep insights we developed for this client. This client is named Raka, and she’s of Indian origin. She has worked at a very big, elite consulting…
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Sanctions Are Like Punishing Your Spouse by Letting Them Date Other People
Sanctions Are Like Punishing Your Spouse by Letting Them Date Other People The next big theme is called, “Sanctions Are Like Punishing Your Spouse by Letting Them Date Other People.” That’s a funny sounding headline. What am I talking about? Imagine you had a spouse, and you don’t think they appreciate you for some reason,…
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Three people that influence you the most
Three people that influence you the most The first big theme is titled, “The Three Most Influential People in the World: Roula Khalaf, Gwen Robinson, and Matt Murray.” This is a very deep insight. We have a lot of coaching clients, including very senior coaching clients. I’ve asked our coaching clients, “Who is influential to you?…
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Coal, Oil and Gas Need the Best Minds
Coal, Oil and Gas Need the Best Minds This week’s theme is called, “Coal, Oil and Gas Need the Best Minds.” If you read any major news publication, you’re going to see two big trends. One is due to activist pressure, major banks like the Japanese company Mitsui—which is a trading house that owns banks—are…
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Career Stagnation. When Promotions End and the Runway Ends
In the final piece for Strategy Insights, called “When Promotions End and the Runway Ends,” I’m going to talk through an interesting client situation. We have an Insider, who later also became a coaching client, named Addie. He works for a large multinational company. There’s nothing unusual about his career. He worked in industry for a…
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Understanding Negative Interest Rates
The next big theme I want to talk about is a pretty interesting one called, “Understanding Negative Interest Rates.” If you go to a bank and take out a loan, the bank charges an interest rate to give you that money. And if you have a credit card and use a $100 and the interest…
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CVC Capital Partners, Toshiba and What’s Really Happening There
The next big theme is titled, “CVC, Toshiba and What’s Really Happening There.” CVC Capital Partners, a private equity firm, is using their Asian fund to make something in the range of a $20 billion dollar bid to take Toshiba. I’m not going to talk too much about the mechanics of the deal because it’s…
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Insights and Implications of Declining Birth Rates
The first theme is called, “COVID-19 Is the World’s Best Contraceptive.” It’s been assumed for a long time that if you get two people to talk to each other and stare into each other’s eyes for long enough, they will eventually develop a bond. This connection starts with awareness and leads to empathy, friendship, and…
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How To Make People Follow You?
I want to end today by talking through some lessons from a client who is leading a large-scale change program at a very reputable investment bank. Part of the work he’s doing is to get the bank to relook at the clients and sectors they want to serve. It’s an important piece of work because…
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LG Exits the Smartphone Business
The next big topic is “LG Exits the Smartphone Business.” This has just been announced, and of course, there’s a lot of hand-wringing in South Korea and so on—wherever LG has their production facilities because it’s not a small business. It’s a multibillion-dollar business. Even though it’s losing money and hasn’t made money for a…
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Post-COVID-19 Growth
The next big theme is the surging Chinese and US GDP, but the broader theme is that we’re going to see a surge in growth post-COVID-19, which will mask bad, weak or improper strategy. When I was a strategy partner and advised some of the world’s largest energy resources companies, one of the most common…