Strategy that lands

Yellow ship heading for land through fleet of ships heading past the land

Why How matters “How” matters in strategy implementation. Knowing how to succeed helps your strategy land. How do we connect vision to action? How do we align the way we work to get the outcomes we seek? How do we get folks to choose us? How do we redirect money, talent, and time? How do…

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Successful AI Adoption starts with the right Foundations and Capability

Image of house to show AI foundations

New Zealand is moving quickly when it comes to generative AI. Tech NZ’s August 2026 report Digital Foundations First: A Practical Pathway for New Zealand SMEs places New Zealand third among APEC economies for generative AI use among the working-age population. New Zealand is embracing AI, but adoption alone doesn’t drive business transformation. For real…

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Does your organisation have the capability to deliver its strategy?

Uncompleted bridge across chasm with text: Strategy without capability is just intention

Every organisation has a strategy. Most have strategic plans, investment priorities and annual work programmes. Yet even with considerable effort and investment, we can struggle to achieve the outcome we have set. The issue may not be the quality of the strategy. It’s whether we have the capability to deliver it. Strategy needs capability Capability…

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Address threats but seize opportunities

Image of yellow paper plane and trail of screwed up past iterations

In latest news, the New Zealand Security Intelligence Service (NZSIS) describes a challenging national security landscape. New Zealand faces active risks from foreign state espionage, coercion of diaspora groups, insider threats, and polarized homegrown violent extremism. From a workplace perspective, the main threat to address is foreign states and their proxies actively targeting New Zealand’s…

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Pursuing Excellence requires targets

Pursuing excellence AI image of webinar presenter Phil Guerin

Edward De Bono invented the word “PO” – a provocative operation. A po is an idea (often silly) to take us out of the comfort of an existing pattern and move to a new one. The po generates possibilities. De Bono described five ways of getting movement: 1.Extract a principle or feature and work forward…

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Is your strategy good enough to eat?

Picture of a cake symbolising strategy

Clarity of strategy is key to execution. It needs to be shared in bite-sized chunks so it can be consumed and feed action. I once wrote a marketing plan which was well received. My manager then told me it should align with the company’s strategy. I said I could do that but I hadn’t seen…

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Implementing strategy is a team sport

Strategy Implementation Roadmap

Image source: Strategy Implementation Institute Experience delivers results I am an experienced consultant but I learn new things every day because I make an effort to do so. Being active in professional associations helps me mix with experts at home and across the world. Last month I joined a workshop where we all talked through…

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Open for business

Sign saying Open for Business

Holiday mode We don’t have a White Christmas in New Zealand. We head off to the beach, lake or river. I like summer holidays as much as the next Kiwi but Hague Consulting is open for business now and in January. Being open for business means being open to opportunities for growth, innovation, optimisation and…

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Productivity is simple … and complicated

What is productivity? Productivity is both simple and complicated. Productivity measures the efficiency with which we convert capital, labour and materials into outputs. It is simple because we measure productivity by units of output divided by units of input. Lots of different inputs make productivity complicated. It may not be obvious how those inputs interact…

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A fresh pair of eyes helps you grow

A pair of cartoon eyes

A fresh pair of eyes – how it helps me Each year I get to hear about great ideas being implemented around the world. And I get to ask the people who lead those initiatives any questions I like. Even better, I get to do it with colleagues from around the world who are in…

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