The document discusses strategies for advancing in your career. It explains that there are two types of decisions - tactical and strategic. Tactical decisions have known means and ends with short-term commitments, while strategic decisions require discovering unknown means and ends with long-term organizational changes. The document provides tips for strategic decision making, including seeing issues from different perspectives, listening openly to new ideas, embracing uncertainty, and basing decisions on values rather than just facts. It emphasizes that the skills required change as you take on higher level roles in an organization.

1. Seat at the Table
Nilofer Merchant, CEO
Prepared for ABI | October 2007
ABI ©2007 Rubicon Consulting, Inc. | Proprietary & Confidential

2. About Rubicon
• Help high tech organizations win markets
through business and market strategy
– Since 1999
– Practices: define, deliver, defend, optimize
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3. Looking In
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4. What to Expect
Guide /
• Common Beliefs / Reality 30 Min
• Strategic Decision Framework 30 Min
Q&A through-out
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5. Some thoughts
about
sucking up
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6. Common Beliefs or Top 10 Myths
State
• #10: Do more, get promoted
• #9: It’s about who you know
• #8: Prove I’m Smarter. Smarter = better.
There’s got to be an answer
• #7:
• #6: Challenging the boss = bad idea
Check
• #5: No need to sell a good idea
• #4: I won’t tell you bad news, cause it’ll hurt
• #3: Down playing reality /positive news is crucial
• #2: When everyone likes me, I’ll get promoted
Think
• #1: I know more; they know more
ABI ©2007 Rubicon Consulting, Inc. | Proprietary & Confidential

7. ABI ©2007 Rubicon Consulting, Inc. | Proprietary & Confidential

8. two types
What if there are
of decisions, and I only see
one?
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9. Great Tactics Take You Up the Ladder
• Work hard, analyze data, formulate plan
• Decision making based on expertise and data
– Make decisions about stuff we know
– Think about it
– Devise a “strategy” for what to do
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10. Tactical Decisions
• Means and ends known
• Largely rational
• Commitments = 1 year or less
• Investments known
• Made by people who want to get closure
• Low barriers to action (money, resources)
Example: Relationship marketing program
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11. Strategic Decisions
• Means and ends must be discovered
• Intuitive / holistic type decision
• Discovery is transforming
• Typically mired in adversity
• Organizational program and human condition
must change
Example: Entering new market or acquisition
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12. The Game Changes as You Rise in the
Organization
Corporate strategic
thinking
Expert tactical
execution
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13. Know Which Toolkit to Use
• Decisions change as move up the food chain
• Know what kind of decision
• Need to refresh toolkit
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14. Entering Requires Advanced Tools
• See
• Listen
• Sort
• Apply values
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15. See
• Clear, factual, unbounded
– Reach outside own dataset
– Broaden what you know
– See what is today
– Inquire into what is possible
– Seek to know more, confirm,
test ideas
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16. Listen
• Approach change with
openness
– The world keeps changing
– Beliefs about world may be
uncertain
• Change the way you
listen
– Become a generative
listener
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17. Sort
• Most decisions
– Most of how we think is
designed to work with
complete information
– Facts can be added, but not
deleted
• Strategic decisions
involve incomplete or
changing information
– Embrace uncertainty and
alternatives
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18. Values
• EQ
• Requires psychological
and spiritual maturity
• Have to give something
up
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19. Some Resources
• A Whole New Mind by Daniel Pink
• Six Hats by Edward DeBono
• Faces of Innovation by Tom Kelly
• Emotional Intelligence by Daniel Goldman
• HBR: Managing Uncertainty
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20. Wrapping Up
• Looking in to getting in
• Dispel myths
• Know what kind of decision needed
• One final tip…
– CEO business goals…
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21. Q&A

22. Win Markets
Trusted Advisors to high-tech firms seeking
to transform their visions into strategies,
strategies into plans, and plans into results.
Practices:
Define / Design / Defend / Optimize
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