So I guess how should that change how we deploy strategy or even start to think about strategy? What should we as senior leaders be doing differently to ensure that these strategic initiatives are a success?

Right.

Well, you know, I've been involved in strategy consulting for quite a few years now.

And people often ask, you know, if I'm at a cocktail party and we're chatting and, oh, you do strategy consulting, you know, do you compete with, you know, McKinsey and BCG and all of these guys? And it's like, no, I don't really compete with them.

I kind of follow them around.

And I don't want to say I clean up after them because they do good work, but they're really focused on strategy deployment.

I mean, what they know an industry vertical.

I think that the techniques and the practicalities of how we deploy is exactly what we want to learn about.

Why is portfolio management often overlooked by leadership? Yeah, I mean,

I think mine's the first book that actually goes from that.

There are so many great books about 30,000 level 30,000 foot level strategy formulation.

There are much fewer books about strategy deployment and execution, the processes that actually are necessary to make the strategy, to realize the strategy.

And then I am not aware of others that actually go down to the investment decision-making in the organization.

But look, it's a fair question.

How does a corporation, what levers do they have to actually make their strategy reality? Well, they've got the people and the work that the people are doing, and they've got this scarce set of resources in terms of investment capacity and money that they can put into things.

What does that mean in practical terms?

I don't blame

the CFO in that scenario.

And that's what drove the great offshoring.

That's right.

The CFO, shortly after exclaiming all I get back are gibberish and excuses, says, you know what? I might as well send this whole thing offshore to some vendor where I spend half as much for a developer to get the same amount of nothing back.

Yeah.

Now, the problem was the fallacy, you know, was that they weren't looking at the whole system and they moved the constraint, but they didn't actually ultimately save money.

$300 million is $300 million.

Can you tell us a bit about this journey?

Well, I was, I was a mediocre bass player who joined the Army.

That's how good I was.

And, uh, I was an airborne ranger, uh, and a Green Beret.

I was a, a commo man.

I humped all the radios and, and did all the radio and satellite communications, and managed all the crypto communications.

Um, later in life, uh, as, as a civilian sort of casting around for a transition to a good civilian career, I went into cellular communications in the early days of cellular telephones.

But if every CEO listening today or senior leader could take three actions starting tomorrow morning after hearing our conversation, what would you hope it would be?

Right.

Which, you know, a couple of thoughts.

I mean, you and I have discussed this and I think we're very aligned philosophically and in the principles that we bring to our clients that we advocate with regard to strategy.

realization programs okrs got popular and just like i've you know you and i have worked in a half a dozen different strategy methodologies and processes from hoshin conrey to g2 mom to v2 mom rather you know mbo's they all ended up you know they all have goals and measures Um, the, the thing that was different about OKRs and half the companies are implementing OKRs badly and embracing the thing, right? So that's, you know, it could get dragged down to be as ineffectual and irritating as MBOs or anything else that we've experienced.

But the thing that really was innovative and different about OKRs wasn't that there were goals were substantially developed by the people who were going to be accountable for delivering them.

You know, MBOs deservedly got a really bad reputation because it was really this, you know, goals rolling downhill, you know, just very top down.

I've been handed this thing.

and any form of accountability around that, because it's really hard to give accountability to people when they don't really understand what you're asking them to do.

[laughs]

I mean, being not from Richmond, when I mentioned that to friends and families when I, when I got the interview, they're like, "Okay, come on.

Westminster Canterbury?" I was, I was unfamiliar.

Um, and I don't have a background in continuing care or in, in the healthcare world, but I thought I'd check it out, and it's a cool combination of both food and beverage.

I mean, we have seven unique dining programs for independent living, and then we've got the healthcare side, the assisted living side, the catering side.

We've got a child development center with 150 kids that we feed throughout the week and an employee dining room, so it, like, checked the box of, like, multilevel restaurant kind of management.

Um, and I come from a long line of, like, caregivers.

I mean, like there's all cool things.