Don't Wait to Know

BREAKING NEWS: Here’s something that many of you have wanted for some time: a complete, searchable list of the questions I ask each week. Thanks to my friend and colleague, Philip Bateman, for making this happen!

Now, on with the show.

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Mystery Flight

As you read this, I’m on a surprise birthday trip with my wife and son. Yes, my birthday was back in October. This is the gift that took six months to arrive — which, honestly, makes it better.

It’s three days: Friday to Sunday.

But, it’s a genuine mystery.

I’ve been given a packing list. Beyond that, nothing.

I don’t know if we’re flying or driving. High-end restaurants or a tent. Comfortable bed, or something I’ll be complaining about for weeks.

And here’s the thing. I absolutely love it.

It’s like a chef’s menu at a good restaurant. You know food is coming. You just don’t know what, or in what sequence. The frisson is delicious.

Especially now, when almost everything is knowable in advance. As a backpacker in the 80s, I’d arrive in a city with a tattered Lonely Planet guidebook and few expectations. Today, travellers have watched the YouTube clips, read the reviews, pre-booked the “hidden gems.”

They arrive already knowing.

This ‘need to know’ is often antithetical to strategy development. Of course we want to feel in control, have agency, and provide ‘delivery assurance’. But the best strategic work I’ve been part of has always involved people who were a little unsure what they’re doing, whether they can do it, or what they’ll encounter as help or hindrance along the way.

Question: What's the last good decision you made because you didn't have all the answers?

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What's Your Node?

A couple of weeks ago I wrote about Henry the Navigator and Portugal’s age of exploration. Here’s another angle from the same history.

In the 15th century, Portugal had almost nothing going for it.

I’m not being unkind, but just look at it back then. A small population. No significant natural resources. A larger, much more powerful neighbour. By any conventional measure, it had no business becoming a global power.

And yet for roughly a century, Portugal ran the world’s most consequential trade network. Not by owning the commodities. Not by conquering the producers. But by controlling the route.

Portugal systematically invested in positioning itself astride the flow.

Singapore did the same thing. No land, no resources. Just an unwavering bet on being indispensable to global flows of trade, finance, and talent. Dubai looked at its neighbours’ oil wealth, recognised it had almost none, and made a 40-year wager on becoming a hub rather than a resource economy.

They own the point through which resources flow, not the resources themselves.

This offers a valid and very real alternative to organisations that can’t compete on scale. They’re better off finding the junction point that larger players can’t be bothered to steward — the knowledge, the relationships, the coordinating role — and then commandeer it quietly.

Question: In your sector, what flows through that nobody's really tending? And could that be yours?

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Outbid yourself

Recently I also wrote about the flawed thinking behind competitor analysis. The follow-up conversation with clients keeps coming back to one thing: don’t wait for someone else to force your hand. A regulator. A funder. A competitor making a move.

Ask yourself first: What would we do?

Years ago I worked with an emergency services organisation caught in exactly that trap — spiralling through “what if” scenarios, paralysed by threats they couldn’t control. I stopped the conversation and gave them a task.

Split into two groups. Your largest funding block is now open to market competition. One group prepares a proposal delivering 25% more for the same money. The other delivers the same for 25% less. Two hours. Then present.

What came out of that room surprised everyone. They identified one area consuming resources without adding real value. Found another they could outsource without losing ground. And uncovered an innovative offer no competitor had thought of.

Two years later, they were thriving.

The exercise works because it shifts the question from “what might happen to us?” to “what are we actually capable of?”

Question: When did you last ask your team what you’d do — before someone else made you?

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I’ll be back next week, assuming I survive the surprise.

Click the heart as a show of support, and have a great week yourself.

Andrew