The Blog
Long-form essays, field notes, and frameworks from the FIRMSconsulting team — published weekly.
All posts
Published weekly-
Dr. Colin Fisher on The Four Pillars of Elite Teams
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…
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Venkat Atluri on How to Thrive in the Ecosystem Economy
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…
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Josh Davis and Greg Prosmushkin on The Hidden Belief Blocking High Performers: “I’m Not Good Enough”
In this conversation with Josh Davis, PhD (psychology & neuroscience, Columbia University, NLP trainer) and Greg Prosmushkin (trial lawyer turned entrepreneur), we unpack: Why top leaders and consultants battle with imposter syndrome How invisible mental models shape every decision and client interaction Why strategy, frameworks, and technical skill aren’t enough if this belief goes unchallenged…
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You Don’t Outgrow the Fundamentals. You Refine Them
You Don’t Outgrow the Fundamentals. …You Refine Them. In consulting and in leadership, there is a danger of stopping practicing the fundamentals because we assume we’ve “moved beyond” them. Yet many major breakdowns I’ve seen come from a failure in the basics: unclear problem statements, weak structuring, sloppy synthesis, or poor communication. The higher you rise,…
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Former Accenture Partner Brad Englert on Career Growth Through Relationships
Brad Englert, former Accenture partner, IT strategist, CIO, and author, shares how building genuine relationships has been the cornerstone of his career success. From his early days in technology consulting to leading large-scale initiatives, Brad reveals the mindset and habits that helped him grow, earn trust, and thrive in a competitive corporate environment. In this…
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Stanford’s Robert Siegel on Navigating the Toughest Leadership Trade-Offs
Robert Siegel, Stanford Graduate School of Business professor, venture capitalist, and former executive, shares the leadership lessons he learned working with Intel’s legendary CEO, Andy Grove, and other amazing leaders, and how to thrive in today’s era of conflicting pressures. In this in-depth conversation, we explore the concept of the systems leader, someone who can…
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New Releases on StrategyTraining.com
New Releases on StrategyTraining.com This week’s updates focus on equipping you with the tools to tackle the problems others avoid and to deliver results that endure. We’ve released new Insider and Legacy episodes, along with another Strategy Control Room Advanced update, each built on battle-tested approaches used in high-stakes engagements. The goal is to elevate…
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L. David Marquet, Former Submarine Commander, on How Leaders Make Better Decisions
L. David Marquet, former nuclear submarine commander and author of Leadership Is Language, shares a precise, operational approach to leadership, one that replaces command-and-control with a language designed for clarity, ownership, and adaptability. Drawing on his experience turning the USS Santa Fe from one of the worst-performing submarines in the fleet to one of the…
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Bain Senior Partner Sarah Elk on Doing Agile Right
Sarah Elk, Senior Partner at Bain & Company and global leader of its operating model work, brings a clear, pragmatic lens to why so many large-scale change efforts fail to stick. Drawing on decades of advising multinational organizations, she diagnoses the structural and behavioral traps that cause transformations to stall—and shares the disciplines that make…
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Ex-McKinsey Expert on War Games, John Horn: How to Read Your Competitors (Strategy Skills classics)
John Horn, professor of economics at Washington University’s Olin Business School and former McKinsey strategist, shares a disciplined framework for understanding competitive behavior by applying game theory and structured simulations. In this episode, he explains how companies can elevate competitor analysis from basic intelligence gathering to actionable strategic insight. Horn begins by debunking the common…
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McKinsey Senior Partner, Kate Smaje: Winning in the Age of Digital and AI (Strategy Skills classics)
In this episode, Kate Smaje offers a clear-eyed and disciplined perspective on what it takes for organizations to succeed in digital transformation. Drawing from deep client work across industries, she outlines a practical, results-focused view of how digital can be embedded into the operating core, not treated as a parallel initiative or buzzword. Kate Smaje…
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Why Western Benchmarks Are Failing: Global Leadership Shifts Executives Must Understand
Are You Leading For The World We Have …Or The World We Had? As you know, within StrategyTraining.com, we’ve been tracking global trends for a long time. And you and I have always known the West wouldn’t hold a lead forever. But when you spend time on the ground in different parts of the world the shift…