Max McKeown Quotes & Sayings

If traditional doesn't work, then traditions won't do. — Max McKeown

As an innovator, you need to be aware of how traditions, habits and bias can act as barriers to accepting new ideas. — Max McKeown

All we've got is Now. Life, composed of a billion moments, from our first to our last thoughts. — Max McKeown

If there are no new ideas, there is no innovation. And if there is no creativity, there are no new ideas. — Max McKeown

The real heart of strategy is the strategist. — Max McKeown

The task of the strategist and leadership team is to reduce uncertainty in the areas that they can directly influence in order to pursue attractively difficult objectives. — Max McKeown

Problem-insight precedes solution insight. Someone has to recognise a problem before they start to solve the problem ... — Max McKeown

Strategists who don't take time to think are just planners. — Max McKeown

Strategy and culture should have breakfast together. — Max McKeown

Adaptability is about the powerful difference between adapting to cope and adapting to win. — Max McKeown

At the point that an idea approaches perfection, fashion and expectations surge ahead, leaving the innovator with considerable room to find further improvements. — Max McKeown

Whenever a maker and a thinker get together, really cool stuff happens. — Max McKeown

Who's more likely to succeed - someone with high skill and no ambition, or no skill and high ambition? If you're an entrepreneur, you can hire as many skilled people for your business as you want. — Max McKeown

Entrepreneurs are like cats, because they are independent and do their own thing. Although organisations say they like cats, what they really want is sheep that they can herd. — Max McKeown

There are immense numbers of potential entrepreneurs who can start their own businesses among the people who are working in large organisations. — Max McKeown

What are you doing at the moment? How does that compare to your competitors? What do you want to achieve? How can you create something people want? — Max McKeown

Change is inevitable, progress is not. — Max McKeown

Culture is the sum of the values, beliefs and assumptions of human groups. — Max McKeown

Following the rules of your industry will only get you so far. — Max McKeown

If you change the rules of the market, you can be more successful than your competitors. — Max McKeown

The founder of Dell found ways of delivering Hewlett Packard's most profitable products for much lower prices but forgot to deliver their quality so within a few years had fallen behind again. Ideas need constant renewal. A great idea will never be perfect and will never work perfectly in all markets and all seasons. — Max McKeown

Nowists are more likely to experience joy because they embrace the uncertainty of existence. They are switched on by the uncertain stuff of human life and come alive when faced with life at its most uncontrollable. — Max McKeown

Change is not overcoming inertia as much as it is redirecting, guiding, tweaking what already is and what has already happened. We must believe that we can make choices and that those choices can alter the future. — Max McKeown

Dont be a life spectator.. take the plunge. — Max McKeown

Strategy was first used in Athens (508 BC) to describe the art of leadership used by the ten generals on the war council. Some argue for the more creative, human side, while others argue for the more analytic side of strategy. — Max McKeown

Strategy is about shaping the future. — Max McKeown

There are no perfect leaders. — Max McKeown

Innovation is about practical creativity - it's about making new ideas useful ... — Max McKeown

The smart strategist allows strategy to be shaped by events. Good reactions can make great strategy. Strategy involves competition of goals, and the risk is the difference between those goals and the ability of the organization to achieve them. So part of the risk is created by the strategy. — Max McKeown

You get told to look before you leap. But if you are too careful you may end up just looking. — Max McKeown

A great strategy meeting is a meeting of minds. — Max McKeown

Brilliant strategy is the best route to desirable ends with available means. — Max McKeown

Strategy is not a solo sport, even if you're the CEO. — Max McKeown

Innovation is deviance which means that the rebellious personality is a natural resource for practical creativity. As an innovator, you need to reject the old to establish a new, better, status quo. And one of the most powerful sources of newness is the rebel or maverick, mind. — Max McKeown

Strategy is about out-thinking your competition. Mark Zuckerberg, while at Harvard, built a website called Facemash 'for fun'. Even today, Facebook believe that 'done is better than perfect'. — Max McKeown

With a clever strategy, each action is self-reinforcing. Each action creates more options that are mutually beneficial. Each victory is not just for today but for tomorrow. — Max McKeown

Our need for innovation has shifted power closer to the source of that power-Us. We are the future. — Max McKeown

Innovation can start with wanting what does not yet exist - and finding a solution - or seeing what does not yet exist - and finding an opportunity. — Max McKeown

You have to learn to see the gold in dirt, which means that you try to spot people with potential as well as ideas that have potential. — Max McKeown

Your life is what happens when you're busy trying to become unbusy. — Max McKeown

Amazon thrived because it implemented the online bookstore idea better than any of its early rivals did, not because it was the only company to have the idea or the first company to have the idea. It continues to grow only because it keeps trying to improve on the details of the idea and the way it puts it into practise. — Max McKeown

Innovation is new stuff that is made useful. — Max McKeown

For most people, it is better to lean towards action rather than inaction. — Max McKeown

Becoming a strategic thinker is about opening your mind to possibilities. It's about seeing the bigger picture. It's about understanding the various parts of your business, taking them apart, and then putting them back together again in a more powerful way. It's about insight, invention, emotion and imagination focused on reshaping some part of the world. — Max McKeown

Before innovation - or practical creativity - there is insight. You must see the world differently. — Max McKeown

The true parents of creativity are curiosity and necessity. — Max McKeown

If you don't start, you're finished. — Max McKeown

Pushing your limits is what allows you to grow stronger, so if you find yourself feeling passive, it can make sense to dial it up a little. Get moving. Accomplish something small. Do something you enjoy. Embrace what moves you. And start again. — Max McKeown

Corporate strategy is usually only useful if you get people engaged with helping you to make it work. — Max McKeown

Let go to get going. — Max McKeown

Give serious thought to why your company should care about your strategy. Specifically, find problems that the board wants to be solved. What are senior managers scared of? Part of becoming a credible strategic thinker is learning effective approaches to selling ideas for your situation. You'll know that you're getting better at selling (or pitching) strategy when managers start coming to you when there is strategic thinking to be done. — Max McKeown

The psychology of individual creativity is about at least three different things. First, creativity is about thinking differently. Second, creativity is about feeling differently. Third, creativity is about focusing, or committing, differently. — Max McKeown

Entrepreneurs don't believe the future is predictable - but they do believe that they can create the future themselves. — Max McKeown

We need to move from comparative advantage to perpetual advantage ... — Max McKeown

Plug into the anti-obvious power of the rebel. Or get those opposing minds to plug into your purpose, to solve your problem, to reimagine your process. — Max McKeown

How much time have you invested in thinking about strategy? How many options have you considered before the plan was written? How have you ensured that the thinking behind the plan is challenged? How much time do you spend exploring trends, possibilities and cool stuff? How much time is spent playing with ideas, hopes and dreams? — Max McKeown

Doing nothing requires effort. Over time, that effort is greater than the effort necessary to improve, or move somewhere better. The trick is to redirect energy. — Max McKeown

All failure is failure to adapt, all success is successful adaptation. — Max McKeown

Ideally, you will develop strategic response to your place in the corporate lifecycle to identify new paths of strategic renewal. You will look for new growth curves that can be started early enough to replace declining products and you will try to identify whole new curves that will take the organisation to new levels of growth as a whole. — Max McKeown