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2023 is almost over. I bought my daughter a Chocolate Advent Calendar marking the days to  Christmas and New Year. For organizational executives, leaders, and business owners, needing to look at 2024 as strategic year, here are 15 questions to bring your focus your attention on strategy, change, and leadership. 

Strategic Success not Perfection 
I was talking to an Executive Director a few months ago about a strategy exercise they wanted to do. They decided to do a bridging strategy until a new relationship agreements are inked with a major donor. Small-scale, daring or modest, it's all about the implementation. 

1. What are the musts-goals?
2. What interests and ambitions must be protected and guarded?
3. Who implements this strategy and what resources are already earmarked for it?
4. When it comes to communicating the change component of the strategy, what is the main crux of your narrative?
5. Who decides what to be done? What stakeholder mechanisms are in place to safeguard organizational-wide support and engagement? 

Managing Change is like Flying a Kite
I used to fly a kite when I was a little kid growing up in suburban Manila. In the early 80s, we played games outside using cans, bottles, and we even cut some plant leaves and made a soup out of it and ate it too! Improvisation is key only when you have creativity. 

1. Do you know where you are in your change process?
2. Have you looked at framing, reframing, and rebooting your change narrative as you adapt to more sub-changes within that big change?
3. Who needs to be informed, consulted, and won over your side over time?
4. What cultural changes and behaviors are to be championed for change to set and be retained?
5. Who is your greatest ally at this point and what could be your next selling 

Disrupt YOUrself
I was teaching in a fellowship programme. One fellow said that he is not leading anyone. He is the finance guy and does most of his work alone with little coordination with other people in other departments. I told him that he needs to lead himself more effectively if he wants to be impactful at work and in other areas of his life. 

1. When was the last time you invested in yourself that brought tremendous benefits?
2. When was the last time that it didn't make a difference?
3. What can you do next year that would make a huge difference in that one problem/situation you're dealing with?
4. What positive mindset would you carry for the rest of 2024 constantly reminding yourself when faced with challenges?
5. Who are your allies and supporters? How can you work alongside them to help you be accountable to your goals? 


From my family to yours, I wish you peace, calm, ease, great fellowship, and comfort this wonderful season. Happy Christmas and a Joyful and Abundant 2024!

When people show you who they're truly are, believe it. This is not just a good dating tip, but a good tip for organizations too. 

Organizations with leaders that are malicious, insensitive, and @#$$holes in general, but exceptional in their work are made to stay and wreak havoc inside because basically, they deliver. If that's all there is to matter, what happens when these kinds of people are given more responsibilities. How much more are they willing to sacrifice ethics and principles to get/save more monies, scrimp on good management practices, and then blame their self-created problems on their partners, funders, creditors, and/or customers? The list will be endless. 

If your kid behaves badly in a supermarket, you don't reward it with a candy and hoping that this behavior will go away instead the opposite will happen. As a parent, you need to make sure that you're the boss and that there is no reason justifiable to make them behave badly in a public place. 

I was sitting as a Board Member one time deliberating on a staff issue. Apparently this staff filed a human rights complaint against her previous employer. She was hired based on her good credentials and after a few months at work, several issues came up. With her in the office, things started to unravel. There were issues related to fighting with another staff over comments heard/said, etc. After six months, lo and behold, we had a serious case of discrimination in front of the Board. There were some staff that resigned one by one and we knew that she has stirred up every one's feathers. In hindsight, it was a bad hire from the very beginning. 

Same thing in organizations run by values, principles, regulations, and a code of conduct. You can't be believe that in the non-profit organizations, there are countless safeguarding policies in place. Yet, things happen even to the highest global organizations such as the UN to the lowliest, tiniest non-profit in a small town. Turning a blind eye on judgement lapses of a leader or supervisor or staff, is encouraging more failures in this department. 

The biggest scams and scandals in the corporate world come from unchecked lying, cheating, and cutting corners. Small doses of these are invisible and therefore difficult to detect, but manager and supervisors should be able to distinguish between ignorance of rules/policies or willful disregard for these guidelines. 
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You can't know how a person will perform in his/her job during the hiring process. But after a few months, you'd better know if that person will be a liability or an asset in the long run.

Don't sleep on your job. Believe them if they're showing you who they really are. 

​I am watching the news regularly as soon as the October 7th massacre in Israel happened.

I have read and watched some very objective and critical analyses of the Israel-Hamas war and I believed that there's more to the propaganda stories in the media today.

For example, alliances and allegiances shift easily. As Egypt and Jordan do not want more headaches in their territories if refugees spill easily in their borders. Majority of the Arab nations want an end to the war but they themselves wash their hands on the obligations and responsibilities such as not supporting, funding, using their bases for terrorism, to name a few. Morally apprehensible actions that violate international law should be condemned, no buts and ifs, and yet even that is not heard across the region.

What we see here is a double-standard as what most learned and informed analyst would say. If Yemen, Syria, Afghanistan, or Iraq were being bombed to dust, nobody gives a damn in the Arab world. But if an Arab is in conflict with the Jew, hell will come down on earth.

Behind all the condemnations on Israel's military action, the Arab region and some of them, the champions of the Palestinian cause are better off without Hamas or any terror organizations that are a threat to regional peace and security. Governments do not want to be heard siding with Israel and therefore undermining the public opinion of their population. They want to keep in power as long as possible but benefit from another country's efforts to rid of their 'problems.'

The extremists encamped on many sides of these issues are laughing at the world. 

What does this got to do with business, leadership, and life? For all the talk about a certain policy, program, or actions by management, know that it's not what is heard, it's what's seen by staff, employees, and the public. Behind the scenes, what intentions and assumptions are used to make decisions? What resources are being deployed to ensure effective implementation? Who is saying what to whom? Are communications as clear and unconvoluted as possible? Who is not keeping pace and what can you do about it?

Ask yourself this question, "What is really going on here?"