Your Life Needs a Strategy: How to Increase Your Odds of Doing Extraordinary Things

In a world of constant disruption, how should organizations make the decisions that determine their future? Christian Stadler has a clear answer: open the process up. “Making strategy behind closed doors is a prescription for failure when disruptions are coming from all directions,” he says. “My research helps leaders see the power that is unleashed when you include a large group of people in your strategy-making process.”

His research shows the payoff of inviting in perspectives from the front lines and beyond: employees involved in big decisions are happier, 70% of executives surveyed reported greater commitment from staff, and the resulting ideas track closer to the operational realities of the business. “About a third of all strategic initiatives are done with some aspect of openness,” he notes. “But this one third of initiatives make about 50% of the revenues and profits of organizations.”

With more than 35 years of experience advising global leadership teams, Martin Reeves helps leaders peek around corners, harness serendipity and turn external forces into internal opportunities. "Many leaders are deeply creative but organizationally trapped," he explains. "When speaking to such groups, pressing the right buttons for seriousness and humor will bring us to interesting places where curiosity, creativity and strategy come together."

Reeves is one of the most published authors in Harvard Business Review and a regular contributor to MIT Sloan Management Review and Fortune. His book Like is an account of the origins of the like button and how innovation really works.