Matthew E. May

Internationally recognized thought leader on strategy, culture, and innovation

Matthew E. May counsels executives and teams through custom designed facilitation, coaching, and training using four basic ingredients: strategy, ideation, experimentation, and lean. He’s been counseling for 30 years, a third of it as a full-time advisor to Toyota. He is the author of four books, the latest The Laws of Subtraction (McGraw-Hill, 2013), and is working on his fifth book. His work has been appeared in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Harvard Business Review, and many other publications. May holds an MBA from The Wharton School and a bachelor’s degree from Johns Hopkins University.

Thu, 05/17/2018 - 12:01
Boot Your Root (Cause) One place where root cause analysis has no real place is in strategy formulation
Thu, 05/17/2018 - 12:01
Process improvers the world over rally around root cause analysis as if it were the holy grail of all things organizational. But is it? Understanding the root cause of a problem certainly makes sense in the context of a present day situation…
The Whole Foods Strategy Isn’t Whole Why cannibalizing yourself to compete never works
Wed, 08/19/2015 - 16:32
There’s an interesting strategic play being made by Whole Foods Market. In the midst of the company’s nearly $2 billion one-day drop in market value a few weeks ago came the announcement of a shareholder lawsuit. Whole Foods had already come under…
A Strategy Test: Does It Nest? When choices are aligned you move in a forward direction
Mon, 07/20/2015 - 13:02
A few days ago, as I waited for an item I purchased at the local Apple store to be brought to me from the back of the store, I had the opportunity to observe Apple’s frontline strategy. It involved another floor associate assisting a gentleman…
Toyota Needs a Strategist And it knows how to advertise for one
Wed, 07/01/2015 - 12:09
No, this isn’t an opinion piece or in any way a critique. It’s more like a public service announcement for business professionals in the job market, looking for a strategy position with a market leader. Like most regular users of LinkedIn, I…
Do Your Internal Functions Have a Strategy? Don’t know? Then answer this: Is there close collaboration between departments?
Wed, 06/10/2015 - 16:56
A significant portion of my strategic facilitation work is with internal functions, a click or two below corporate and business-unit strategy, which includes marketing, human resources, purchasing, and even internal strategy groups. There’s good…
The Art of Strategic Observation Always come armed with a hypothesis
Mon, 05/04/2015 - 13:00
I am nothing if not a consumerist. Meaning, I am constantly impressing upon the companies with which I work the importance of a deep and empathic understanding of customers past, present, and future. This is especially true if a company is…
Swat Your SWOT... Forever Ask what would have to be true for your choices to be good ones
Tue, 04/14/2015 - 16:44
The more strategy development work I do with organizations, the more I’m becoming aware of a prevalent pattern, one that I find counterproductive, even detrimental. It concerns the starting point for their strategy work: In nearly every case, they…
Strategy vs. Execution A meaningless distinction
Tue, 03/31/2015 - 10:52
Over on the Harvard Business Review blogs, there’s a wonderful debate on the subject of strategy between Roger Martin, who wrote “Stop Distinguishing Between Strategy and Execution,” and Don Sull, an MIT scholar who believes there’s a meaningful…
Playing to Win Answering five strategic questions can help lead you to the top
Mon, 03/09/2015 - 17:17
My friend Roger Martin (No. 3 on Thinkers50 ranking in 2013) penned a terrific article in The European Business Review on how Tennis Canada, the national governing body for the sport within that country, rose from recent oblivion to now boasting…
The Year of the Question Emphasizing learnership over leadership
Mon, 01/19/2015 - 00:00
  As I contemplate the year ahead and the changes I’d like to bring about, I hereby by dub 2015 the “Year of the Question.” If I know anything after a half-century on this planet, it’s that we all live our lives in constant and continuous pursuit of…