Delivers an expert perspective on strategic leadership and decision-making across all organizational levels. Discover practical management insights grounded in Oriol’s proven track record as a C-level executive, bridging the gap between high-level theory and effective corporate execution.
Promoting the wrong person is not just an HR mistake; it is a cultural signal that distorts decision-making, erodes performance, and drives talent away. Incompetence rises through politics and appearance, while teams pay the price in demotivation, loss of excellence, and a silent yet profound deterioration of the organization.
The professional journey is like a river: part of the route is known, but market currents and organizational flows shift without warning. We do not control the riverbed itself, only how we choose to navigate it and with which tools. Our skills are the oars that determine our ability to maneuver; strengthening them is essential to handle turbulence, avoid drifting, and keep a deliberate course.
Adopting a customer-centric approach is not a quick project, no matter how much we try to accelerate, but rather a profound transformation of the organization’s DNA. It means moving from selling products to solving customer problems, breaking down silos, redefining KPIs, and rebuilding processes, culture, and technology. With all this, the greatest risk is to stop halfway unable to complete the journey and left stranded in no man’s land.
Market saturation is the reality: growing revenue has become an almost inevitable zero-sum game. The battle has always been in the margins. First came economies of scale, then platforms, then basic automation, and now applied AI. Today, as before, it all comes down to optimizing costs and managing margins.
Some organizations confuse participation with leadership and end up diluting responsibility in “democratic” processes where everyone gives an opinion and no one decides. Listening to multiple perspectives is valuable, but the decision must have a clear owner. Otherwise, focus is lost, execution stalls, and the role of the professionals hired to lead is undermined.
Setting prices in professional services is a fragile balance: we make promises before delivering anything. Perceived value can work in the client’s favor or against us as providers. Brand can reduce uncertainty, but it doesn’t eliminate the risk of a mismatch between price and expectations. Did someone say “balance”?
Nostalgia may not help us manage the past, but it does help us understand it. In strategy, looking back isn’t a melancholic gesture: it’s a way to recognize patterns that return under new names. History doesn’t repeat itself, but it rhymes. Incorporating that retrospective lens turns the SWOT into more than just a diagnosis: it becomes a tool for projecting with memory.
In many organizations, senior professionals anticipate risks and consequences thanks to their experience, yet they are not always heard. When their warnings are ignored, what they predicted inevitably happens. Experience cannot be transferred or replaced by technology; modeling scenarios and anticipating problems is a strategic asset that, if wasted, makes wisdom truly terrible.