Podcast
Strategic Minds
Hosted by Rich Horwath · EN
Are you tactical or strategic? Research shows that it’s the difference between bankruptcy and a Kevlar competitive advantage.
In a world where bad strategy is the leading cause of business failure, and only one out of every four leaders are truly strategic, strategic fitness is the meta-skill of elite executives.
On Strategic Minds, you’ll journey with New York Times & Wall Street Journal bestselling author Rich Horwath into conversations with extraordinary leaders and world-class experts to learn new ways to think, plan, and act strategically. You’ll discover game-changing insights, tips, and techniques to turbocharge your performance and position you as a true difference-maker in your arena.
In a world where bad strategy is the leading cause of business failure, and only one out of every four leaders are truly strategic, strategic fitness is the meta-skill of elite executives.
On Strategic Minds, you’ll journey with New York Times & Wall Street Journal bestselling author Rich Horwath into conversations with extraordinary leaders and world-class experts to learn new ways to think, plan, and act strategically. You’ll discover game-changing insights, tips, and techniques to turbocharge your performance and position you as a true difference-maker in your arena.
14episodes
Episodes
Newest firstAll episodes
Shaping the Future with Strategic Thinking
Sep 2301:07:36Tap to summarizeStrategy: The Art of Shaping the Future In this episode, Rich sits down with renowned strategist, psychologist, and innovation expert Dr. Max McKeown. As the author of The Strategy Book, SuperAdaptability, and several other bestsellers, Max brings a uniquely creative lens to the world of strategic thinking — blending research, live visual art, and a deep appreciation for paradox. Together, Rich and Max explore what strategy really is, how imagination fuels innovation, and why developing a rhythm to your strategic work is essential in today’s ever-changing world. With insight, humor, and sharp metaphors, this episode offers a powerful reframing of how leaders can shape the future. If you're looking to reconnect with the why behind your strategy — and equip yourself with creative tools to thrive — this episode is for you. 🔑 Key Quotes: “Strategy is about shaping the future.” “Strategy is everything you need to get to where you want to go. Strategy is everything — but everything is not strategy.” “One organization I'm thinking about has a strategic rhythm to their work… slow, slow, quick, quick, slow.” “I define innovation as being practical creativity — making new ideas useful.” ⏱️ Timestamps: (00:00) Deep Dive Interview with Dr. Max McKeown (1:00:45) Practice Makes Profit (1:04:24) League of Strategic Minds (1:06:10) Winsights: Ideas for Advantage 💰 Practice Makes Profit: In this segment, Rich highlights the value chain as a powerful tool for sharpening strategic thinking. Originally developed by Michael Porter, the value chain breaks a business into primary activities (like production, operations, marketing, or sales) and the supporting secondary activities that enable them. By mapping these activities—whether at the industry level, such as bean production through roasting in the coffee industry, or at the company level, like Uber’s operations spanning rides, delivery, and freight—leaders can see where differentiation and costs shape customer value. Comparing your value chain against competitors’ makes it easier to identify areas of competitive advantage and disadvantage, offering a practical way to practice strategic thinking. 🧠 League of Strategic Minds: This listener Q&A tackled the question, “How can I tell if my strategy is working?” Rich explained that one common pitfall is changing strategies too quickly without truly testing them. The key lies in setting measurable objectives with clear timeframes, then building in milestones to track progress along the way. For example, instead of aiming vaguely to increase sales by 15% over the year, a leader might target 3% growth in Q1, 6% by Q2, and 10% by Q3. These checkpoints create a clear rhythm for evaluation, allowing leaders to adjust thoughtfully rather than guessing whether their strategy is paying off. 🏆 Winsights: To close the episode, Rich shared a quote from Olympic gold medal gymnast Shannon Miller, who observed that at the highest levels of competition, everyone is talented and works hard, but what separates the gold medalists from the silver medalists is the mental game. The insight applies equally to business: mental fitness is a strategic advantage. Rich encouraged listeners to build their own mental game by starting the day with short “mental workouts” to increase focus and resilience, positioning themselves to perform at their best when it matters most. 🔗 Links: 📘 SuperAdaptability 📘 The Strategy Book 📘 The Innovation Book 📘 The Innovator’s Book 🌐 TheSpeedStrategy.com 🎥 Max McKeown Live Drawings 🚀 Subscribe to Strategic Minds: 🌐 Strategic Thinking Institute Website 👤 Rich Horwath on LinkedIn 🎥 Rich Horwath on YouTube 🐦 Rich Horwath on X 📸 Rich Horwath on Instagram 📘 STRATEGIC Book 🧠 Strategic Fitness System 📬 Free Strategic Thinker Newsletter 🧪 Strategic Quotient (SQ) Assessment 🎧 Listen on Apple Podcasts 🎧 Listen on Spotify
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Mindfulness: Setting the Stage to Think
Sep 901:04:26Tap to summarizeIn this episode, Rich sits down with Mo Edjlali, mindfulness innovator, entrepreneur, and founder of Mindful Leader. With more than 25 years of cross-industry experience, Mo has helped shape how mindfulness is applied in the workplace. His book, Open MBSR, reimagines the future of mindfulness in organizational life. Together, Rich and Mo explore the intersections of mindfulness, leadership, and strategy—examining how leaders can build self-awareness, navigate paradoxes, and bring greater presence to their decision-making. If you're curious about how contemplative practices can influence performance and leadership, this conversation offers practical insights and powerful reframes. 🔑 Key Quotes: “The practice of mindfulness is paying attention to the present moment with openness and curiosity.” “Just turn off the noise and be alone with your thoughts. And there's no excuse not to do that.” “I think it's very difficult to have situational awareness if you don't have self-awareness. And if you do have situational awareness, but you don't have self-awareness, then it might be difficult to share what you've discovered in ways that are effective and that rally folks around.” “I'm a staunch advocate for this idea of dialectic thinking to get us to just remember that idea of balance, almost like the yin and the yang… We have to find balance, to think in paradox, like we could accept who we are fully and we could want to become a better person.” 💰 Practice Makes Profit: Leadership inconsistency is one of the top reasons employees leave organizations. Just as athletes want referees to call the game consistently, teams want their leaders to act with clarity and stability. One powerful tool? Leadership principles. These short, actionable statements help guide how leaders show up and make decisions — every day. By practicing them consistently, leaders build trust, foster alignment, and create the conditions for lasting performance. 🧠 League of Strategic Minds: Listener Question: How do you define leadership? Leadership is the ability to set a clear direction and support others in achieving shared goals. Great leaders don't just chart a path — they equip their teams with the tools, training, and guidance to succeed. If you'd like to submit a question for this segment, visit strategyskills.com. Selected entries receive exclusive Strategic Minds swag. 🏆 Winsights: Ideas for Advantage Today’s Winsight comes from David Novak, former CEO of Yum! Brands: “Take time to reflect. It’s the stillness that leads to the action.” Strategic thinkers don’t just do — they pause. Set aside 30 minutes each week to step off the activity treadmill and ask yourself: What am I doing? Why am I doing it? How could I do it better? The stillness might just be your biggest advantage. ⏱️ Timestamps: (00:00) Deep Dive Interview with Mo Edjlali (38:52) Practice Makes Profit (41:33) League of Strategic Minds (44:20) Winsights: Ideas for Advantage 🔗 Links: Open MBSR: Reimagining the Future of Mindfulness: https://www.amazon.com/Open-MSBR-Vision-Framework-Mindfulness/dp/1119988632 Mindful Leader: https://www.mindfulleader.org/ Mo Edjlali on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/medjlali/ 🚀 Subscribe to Strategic Minds Strategic Thinking Institute Website Rich Horwath on LinkedIn Rich Horwath on YouTube Rich Horwath on X Rich Horwath on Instagram STRATEGIC Book Strategic Fitness System Free Strategic Thinker Newsletter Strategic Quotient (SQ) Assessment 🎧 Listen on Apple Podcasts 🎧 Listen on Spotify
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Strategy: The Art of Problem Solving With Imagination
Aug 2601:08:03Tap to summarizeHow can leaders develop winning strategy by solving competition-based problems? In this episode, Rich sits down with Martin Reeves — chairman of the BCG Henderson Institute, prolific business strategist, and co-author of books like The Imagination Machine, Your Strategy Needs a Strategy, and his recently published work, Like: The Button that Changed the World. Martin shares why great strategies often require reframing the real problem, how leaders can deploy collective imagination, and why strategic advantage is always a moving target. He also explores the rare but essential trait of ambidexterity — being able to exploit what works while continuing to explore what’s next — and outlines why in today’s fast-changing world, strategy must evolve from a plan to a practice. 🔑 Key Quotes: “I have a very pragmatic definition of strategy in that it's any systematic, so not just random, any systematic pattern of thought or action which biases the probability, not the certainty, biases the probability of favorable competitive outcomes.” “Well, the basic idea is you've got to solve a competitive problem and therefore what problem you're solving depends upon the competitive situation.” “We kept bumping into this idea of what the strategists call ambidexterity, which is the ability to explore and exploit, to do the growth thing as well as the efficiency thing is extremely valuable, but also quite rare.” “As a 35-year veteran strategist, I can't remember a single assignment where the given problem, the assumed problem, was the actual problem. There was always the need to reframe.” “We may think about the strategy of large corporations in terms of efficiency and deduction and analysis, but actually now with the pace of change, also every company needs, even at scale, to be entrepreneurial and therefore it needs to deploy collective imagination.” “So essentially, competitive advantage involves doing difficult and valuable things, which you can do, which create value for customers, but which are hard for others to imitate.” 🧠 Practice Makes Profit: Rich reflects on how to avoid chasing the shiny objects in your business and start assessing opportunities objectively. 🎯 League of Strategic Minds: How can leaders prepare their teams for a productive strategy off-site meeting? 🏆 Winsight: Former LinkedIn CEO Jeff Weiner’s perspective on effective time management and how you can apply it to your work. ⏱ Time Stamps: (00:00) Deep Dive Interview with Martin Reeves (52:46) Practice Makes Profit (55:13) League of Strategic Minds (57:10) Winsights, Ideas for Advantage 🔗 Links: 📕 Like: The Button That Changed the World 📕 Your Strategy Needs a Strategy 📕 The Imagination Machine 🔗 https://www.linkedin.com/in/martin-reeves/ 🚀 Subscribe to Strategic Minds Strategic Thinking Institute Website Rich Horwath on LinkedIn Rich Horwath on YouTube Rich Horwath on X Rich Horwath on Instagram STRATEGIC Book Strategic Fitness System Free Strategic Thinker Newsletter Strategic Quotient (SQ) Assessment 🎧 Listen on Apple Podcasts 🎧 Listen on Spotify
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The Origin Story of Strategy
Aug 12, 202501:00:25Tap to summarizeHow can leaders develop strategies that adapt to uncertainty and avoid the pitfalls of overconfidence? In this episode, Rich sits down with Professor Sir Lawrence Freedman — Emeritus Professor of War Studies at King’s College London and one of the world’s leading scholars on strategy, international relations, and military history. Knighted for his contributions and the official historian of the Falklands Campaign, Sir Lawrence has authored seminal works including Strategy: A History, The Future of War, and The Evolution of Nuclear Strategy. In this wide-ranging conversation, he shares insights on: How strategy is more than a plan — and why it’s a continuous, iterative process Why understanding your adversaries and allies is as important in business as in war The dangers of hubris, overextension, and failing to listen to dissenting voices How leaders can recognize when to adapt or reverse course without losing momentum Sir Lawrence also offers timeless lessons for business leaders on reading context, anticipating friction, and practicing strategic empathy. ⏱ Time Stamps (00:00) Deep Dive Interview with Sir Lawrence Freedman (54:35) Practice Makes Profit (56:23) League of Strategic Minds (58:43) Winsights, Ideas for Advantage 🔑 Key Quotes “Strategy is one of those things that you do without calling it strategy. So if people at any time are working out how to achieve what they want to achieve and looking at the means available, they're engaging in strategy.” “It's easier to have a good strategy if you've got resources, much harder if you don't have resources, which is why, incidentally, a lot of the most ingenious strategic thinkers have been underdogs because they really needed to work at it.” “The thing about strategy is it's a continual process. So I kind of talk about it as a sort of soap opera rather than a three-act play. You don't suddenly say, now I'm done.” “If you look at why military strategy fails most, it's because of underestimation of your adversaries.” “Most strategy, let's say 50% of strategy is defensive. I don't know how much that's taught in business schools, but that's the way in practice a lot of it's gonna work because you're just being caught out. So it's against the ability to read situations.” 🔄 Practice Makes Profit Rich shares a practical exercise for conducting a meeting audit — helping leaders reclaim time and improve organizational efficiency by aligning meetings with strategic purpose. 🧠 League of Strategic Minds Listener Question: What are the keys to leading a truly strategic meeting? Rich outlines the importance of clear agendas, pre-work, interactive dialogue, and actionable takeaways to transform standard meetings into value-creating sessions. 💡 Winsight: Idea for Advantage Michael Porter reminds us: “It’s healthy for people to disagree, but there comes a time when discussion ends. Strategy is about picking a direction and getting everybody really excited about it.” Leaders who decide decisively and align teams behind a clear direction outperform those who linger in consensus-building. 🔗 Links Sir Lawrence Freedman’s Books on Amazon: Strategy: A History The Future of War: A History Command: The Politics of Military Operations The Evolution of Nuclear Strategy (4th Edition) Sir Lawrence’s Substack: https://samf.substack.com/ Additional Links: Strategic Thinking Institute Website: https://www.strategyskills.com/ Rich Horwath on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/richhorwath/ Rich Horwath on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@RichHorwath Rich Horwath on X: https://x.com/RichHorwath Rich Horwath on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/richhorwathceo/ STRATEGIC Book: https://www.amazon.com/dp/1394215339 Strategic Fitness System: http://www.Strategic-Fitness-System.com Free Strategic Thinker Newsletter: https://www.strategyskills.com/subscribe/ Strategic Quotient (SQ) Assessment: https://www.strategyskills.com/strategic-quotient-assessment/ Subscribe to the Podcast on Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/strategic-minds/id1748877976 Subscribe on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/57wbZTtLJhznc4OBCe0OE6?si=c2c74bbb9b4340e0
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