by Robyn Bolton | Jan 11, 2026 | Leading Through Uncertainty, Strategy
We’re two full weeks into the new year and I’m curious, how is the strategy and operating plan you spent all Q3 and Q4 working on progressing? You nailed it, right? Everything is just as you expected and things are moving forward just as you planned.
I didn’t think so.
So, like many others, you feel tempted to double down on what worked before or chase every opportunity with the hope that it will “future-proof” your business.
Stop.
Remember the Cheshire Cat, “If you don’t know where you’re going, any road will get you there.”
You DO know where you’re going because your goals didn’t change. You still need to grow revenue and cut costs with fewer resources than last year.
The map changed. So you need to find a new road.
You’re not going to find it by looking at old playbooks or by following every path available.
You will find it by following these three steps (and don’t require months or millions to complete).
Return to First Principles
When old maps fail and new roads are uncertain, the most successful leaders return to first principles, the fundamental, irreducible truths of a subject:
- Organizations are systems
- Systems seek equilibrium and resist change when elements are misaligned
- People in the system do what the system allows, models, and rewards
Returning to these principles is the root of success because it forces you to pause and ask the right questions before (re)acting.
Ask Questions to Find the Root Cause
Based on the first principles, think of your organization as a lock. All the tumblers need to align to unlock the organization’s potential to get to where you need to go. When the tumblers don’t align, you stay stuck in the dying status quo.
Every organization has three tumblers – Architecture (how you’re organized), Behavior (what leaders actually do), and Culture (what gets rewarded) – that must align to develop and execute a strategy in an environment of uncertainty and constant change.
But ensuring that you’ve aligned all three tumblers, and not just one or two, requires asking questions to get to the root cause of the challenges.
Is your leadership team struggling to align on a decision because they don’t have enough data or can’t agree on what it means? The Behavior and Culture tumblers are misaligned with the structure and incentives of Architecture
Are people resisting the new AI tools you rolled out? Architectural incentives and metrics, and leadership communications and behaviors are preventing buy-in.
Struggling to squeeze growth out of a stagnant business? Structures and systems combined with organization culture are reinforcing safety and a fixed mindset rather than encouraging curiosity and learning.
Align the Tumblers
When you diagnose the root causes you find the misaligned tumbler. And, in the process of bringing it into alignment, it will likely pull the others in, too.
By role modeling leadership behaviors that encourage transparent communication (no hiding behind buzzwords), quantifying confidence, and smart risk taking, you’ll also influence culture and may reveal a needed change in Architecture.
Modifying the metrics and rewards in Architecture and making sure that your communications and behavior encourage buy-in to new AI tools, will start to establish an AI-friendly culture.
Overhauling Architecture to encourage and reward actions that expand that stagnant business into new markets or brings new solutions to your existing customers, will build new leadership Behaviors will drive culture change.
Get to your Goals
It’s a VUCA/BANI world AND It’s only going to accelerate. That means that the strategy you developed last quarter and the operational plans you set last month will be obsolete by the end of the week.
But the strategy and the plan were never the goal. They were the road you planned based on the map you had. When the map changes, the road does, too. But you can still get to the goal if you’re willing to fiddle with a lock.
by Robyn Bolton | Dec 17, 2025 | Press Mentions
by Robyn Bolton | Dec 16, 2025 | Just for Fun, Leadership, Tips, Tricks, & Tools, Uncategorized
Everybody loves a Top X list. This past week I’ve read the Top 100 Best Comedy Movies of All Time, The 100 Best Episodes of the Century, and the NYT’s 100 Notable Books of 2025. And all this before we’re inundated with the Top 10 lists sports, politics, celebrity news, world news, and whatever other topic a writer can dream up.
Top X Lists are about big things, events that affect everyone or that will be remembered for decades. And while those Macro-moments are what stand out in our memories, they rarely define our everyday existence.
What are Micro-moments?
I first heard of Micro-moments in an interview between Dan Shipper, founder of Every, and Henrik Werdelin, founder of Prehype (and incubator that helped launch Barkbox and Ro Health). According to Werdelin:
Micro-moments for me are things when I’m in flow and things where I’m happy. It can’t be a big thing like having a family. It has to be a very concrete things like I like walking over the Brooklyn Bridge in the morning. It’s just something I get profoundly happy about, right? Or I like being in brainstorm meetings with (other entrepreneurs)
But his list of Micro-moments isn’t just a new-age happiness manifestation, it’s an actual decision-making tool. Werdelin explains:
I was basically trying to figure out what to do next and I was keeping all my options open. I got offered a job to run BBC Digital on the international side and then I got offered a job at a design agency called Wolf Collins who had an incredible CEO.
And so, I ended up having these 30 concrete [moments] where I’ve done stuff and then I started to use that as a way to measure options that would be thrown at me. The BBC sounded like it would be a lot of money, and it was like a cool job, and it would give me, I guess, self-esteem for a second. But then when I looked at what it would entail, none of the Micro-moments would be included so I was like, “ah, probably not for me.”
My first Micro-reactions
- Eye roll: Thank goodness you had a list of Micro-moments so you could avoid the soul sucking horror of running BBC Digital!
- Righteous indignation: Do you have any idea how hard it is out there to find a job? People would be thrilled to have a job that delivers only ONE Micro-moment of happiness?!
- Breathe: What a second. What if Mico-moments don’t determine your role. What if Micro-moments…perhaps…mean a little bit more! (yes, that is a terrible rephrasing of the Grinch’s epiphany)
Micro-moments are more than moments of flow and joy. They’re the moments that make up our lives, relationships, and view of the world. They’re the moments that should be on our Top 10 lists but too often get crowded out by noisier, bigger moments.
They’re also things we can create, design for, and sometimes even control.
What are YOUR Micro-moments?
As the period of end-of-year reflection approaches, think about your Micro-moments. What small, concrete moments that brought you flow, joy, or peace, this year? Where were you? What were you doing? Who were you with? Jot them down
When the new year dawns, go back to your list and get curious. What are the common themes, people, places, and activities in your Micro-moments. Write down what you notice.
As the year kicks into gear and everyone settles back into work and school routines, return to your list and start planning. How might you create more Micro-moments?
Life is made up of moments. Many of them are beyond our control. But some of them aren’t. And wouldn’t it be great to know which ones make us happiest so we can experience them more often?
by Robyn Bolton | Dec 10, 2025 | Customer Centricity, Innovation, Leading Through Uncertainty
In times of great uncertainty, we seek safety. But what does “safety” look like?
What we say: Safety = Data
We tend to believe that we are rational beings and, as a result, we rely on data to make decisions.
Great! We’ve got lots of data from lots of uncertain periods. HBR examined 4,700 public companies during three global recessions (1980, 1990, and 2000). They found that the companies that the companies that emerged “outperforming rivals in their industry by at least 10% in terms of sales and profits growth” had one thing in common: They aggressively made cuts to improve operational efficiency and ruthlessly invested in marketing, R&D, and building new assets to better serve customers have the highest probability of emerging as markets leaders post-recession.
This research was backed up in 2020 in a McKinsey study that found that “Organizations that maintained their innovation focus through the 2009 financial crisis, for example, emerged stronger, outperforming the market average by more than 30 percent and continuing to deliver accelerated growth over the subsequent three to five years.”
What we do: Safety = Hoarding
The reality is that we are human beings and, as a result, make decisions based on how we feel and the use data to justify those decisions.
How else do you explain that despite the data, only 9% of companies took the balanced approach recommended in the HBR study and, ten years later, only 25% of the companies studied by McKinsey stated that “capturing new growth” was a top priority coming out of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Uncertainty is scary so, as individuals and as organizations, we scramble to secure scarce resources, cut anything that feels extraneous, and shift or focus to survival.
What now? And, not Or.
What was true in 2010 is still true today and new research from Bain offers practical advice for how leaders can follow both their hearts and their heads.
Implement systems to protect you from yourself. Bain studied Fast Company’s 50 Most Innovative Companies and found that 79% use two different operating models for innovation to combat executives’ natural risk aversion. The first, for sustaining innovation uses traditional stage-gate models, seeks input from experts and existing customers, and is evaluated on ROI-driven metrics.
The second, for breakthrough innovations, is designed to embrace and manage uncertainty by learning from new customers and emerging trends, working with speed and agility, engaging non-traditional collaborators, and evaluating projects based on their long-term potential and strategic option value.
Don’t outspend. Out-allocate. Supporting the two-system approach, nearly half of the companies studied send less on R&D than their peers overall and spend it differently: 39% of their R&D budgets to sustaining innovations and 61% to expanding into new categories or business models.
Use AI to accelerate, not create. Companies integrating AI into innovation processes have seen design-to-launch timelines shrink by 20% or more. The key word there is “integrate,” not outsource. They use AI for data and trend analysis, rapid prototyping, and automating repetitive tasks. But they still rely on humans for original thinking, intuition-based decisions, and genuine customer empathy.
Prioritize humans above all else. Even though all the information in the world is at our fingerprints, humans remain unknowable, unpredictable, and wonderfully weird. That’s why successful companies use AI to enhance, not replace, direct engagement with customers. They use synthetic personas as a rehearsal space for brainstorming, designing research, and concept testing. But they also know there is no replacement (yet) for human-to-human interaction, especially when creating new offerings and business models.
In times of great uncertainty, we seek safety. But safety doesn’t guarantee certainty. Nothing does. So, the safest thing we can do is learn from the past, prepare (not plan) for the future, make the best decisions possible based on what we know and feel today, and stay open to changing them tomorrow.
by Robyn Bolton | Dec 2, 2025 | AI
“It just popped up one day. Who knows how long they worked on it or how many of millions were spent. They told us to think of it as ChatGPT but trained on everything our company has ever done so we can ask it anything and get an answer immediately.”
The words my client was using to describe her company’s new AI Chatbot made it sound like a miracle. Her tone said something else completely.
“It sounds helpful,” I offered. “Have you tried it?”
“I’m not training my replacement! And I’m not going to train my R&D, Supply Chain, Customer Insights, or Finance colleagues’ replacements either. And I’m not alone. I don’t think anyone’s using it because the company just announced they’re tracking usage and, if we don’t use it daily, that will be reflected in our performance reviews.”
All I could do was sigh. The Underpants Gnomes have struck again.
Who are the Underpants Gnomes?
The Underpants Gnomes are the stars of a 1998 South Park episode described by media critic Paul Cantor as, “the most fully developed defense of capitalism ever produced.”
Claiming to be business experts, the Underpants Gnomes sneak into South Park residents’ homes every night and steal their underpants. When confronted by the boy in their underground lair, the Gnomes explain their business plan:
- Collect underpants
- ?
- Profit
It was meant as satire.
Some took it as a an abbreviated MBA.
How to Spot the Underpants AI Gnomes
As the AI hype grows, fueling executive FOMO (Fear of Missing Out), the Underpants Gnomes, cleverly disguised as experts, entrepreneurs and consultants, saw their opportunity.
- Sell AI
- ?
- Profit
While they’ve pivoted their business focus, they haven’t improved their operations so the Underpants AI Gnomes as still easy to spot:
- Investment without Intention: Is your company investing in AI because it’s “essential to future-proofing the business?” That sounds good but if your company can’t explain the future it’s proofing itself against and how AI builds a moat or a life preserver in that future, it’s a sign that the Gnomes are in the building.
- Switches, not Solutions: If your company thinks that AI adoption is as “easy as turning on Copilot” or “installing a custom GPT chatbot, the Gnomes are gaining traction. AI is a tool and you need to teach people how to use tools, build processes to support the change, and demonstrate the benefit.
- Activity without Achievement: When MIT published research indicating that 95% of corporate Gen AI pilots were failing, it was a sign of just how deeply the Gnomes have infiltrated companies. Experiments are essential at the start of any new venture but only useful if they generate replicable and scalable learning.
How to defend against the AI Gnomes
Odds are the gnomes are already in your company. But fear not, you can still turn “Phase 2:?” into something that actually leads to “Phase 3: Profit.”
- Start with the end in mind: Be specific about the outcome you are trying to achieve. The answer should be agnostic of AI and tied to business goals.
- Design with people at the center: Achieving your desired outcomes requires rethinking and redesigning existing processes. Strategic creativity like that requires combining people, processes, and technology to achieve and embed.
- Develop with discipline: Just because you can (run a pilot, sign up for a free trial), doesn’t mean you should. Small-scale experiments require the same degree of discipline as multi-million-dollar digital transformations. So, if you can’t articulate what you need to learn and how it contributes to the bigger goal, move on.
AI, in all its forms, is here to stay. But the same doesn’t have to be true for the AI Gnomes.
Have you spotted the Gnomes in your company?
