Chainsaw Strategy: Your Best Thinking Isn't at Your Desk

John McLean, CEO of Bund­aberg Brewed Drinks and its world famous gin­ger beer, runs a busi­ness that sells in 60 coun­tries. His best ideas come from a chainsaw.

He has a rain­for­est prop­er­ty in Queens­land. When he’s there, he does­n’t take calls. He does­n’t answer emails. He clears bush.

He comes back with a note­book full of ideas. His team waits for those note­books. They’ve learned that the com­pa­ny’s biggest growth ideas don’t come from the boardroom.

“I do more think­ing and plan­ning about the busi­ness in a few days in the rain­for­est than I do sit­ting in my office,” John says.

I’ve coached CEOs for 25 years, and I see ver­sions of this every­where. The lead­ers who dri­ve real growth in their busi­ness have found a way to step out of it.

Two Kinds of Work

There’s a pull toward the day-to-day, and it’s not a char­ac­ter flaw.

Email feels pro­duc­tive. Oper­a­tional reviews feel pro­duc­tive. Solv­ing today’s fire feels pro­duc­tive. Most of it actu­al­ly is. That’s the tricky part.

But there are two kinds of work a CEO does, and they aren’t the same.

Improve­ment work makes the busi­ness bet­ter at what it already does. Tighter oper­a­tions. Faster exe­cu­tion. Few­er mis­takes. Bet­ter mar­gins. This fills most cal­en­dars, and it matters.

Growth work is dif­fer­ent. It asks: are we build­ing the right thing? Are we head­ing in the right direc­tion? What are we miss­ing? What new cus­tomers or prod­ucts should we add? What should we stop, start, or change? This is where new direc­tion comes from.

Both are essen­tial. But they use dif­fer­ent parts of your brain, and they need dif­fer­ent con­di­tions. You can dri­ve improve­ment inside a packed cal­en­dar. You can’t gen­er­ate growth there.

That’s why even the strongest CEOs I work with slide into months of pure exe­cu­tion. The cal­en­dar fills. The team needs you. The improve­ment work feels impor­tant. And the growth ques­tions qui­et­ly slip off the desk.

It’s not weak­ness. It’s gravity.

Space Is a Strate­gic Input

In Your Oxy­gen Mask First, I made the case that pro­tect­ing your capac­i­ty isn’t option­al. A deplet­ed CEO makes worse deci­sions. Full stop.

The chain­saw is a sharp­er ver­sion of that point. Space isn’t just recov­ery. It’s where the growth think­ing actu­al­ly happens.

Walk­ing, man­u­al work, nature, long dri­ves. These are the con­di­tions where the strate­gic mind tends to come back online. The brain solves the hard prob­lems when you stop chas­ing them.

It isn’t mys­ti­cism. It’s how the brain works.

Find Your Version

You don’t need a rain­for­est. You need your ver­sion of one.

For some CEOs I work with, it’s a long hike. For oth­ers it’s a work­shop, a boat, a ranch. A week­ly two-hour walk with no phone. A morn­ing at the cab­in before any­one else is up. A few days a quar­ter, com­plete­ly off the grid.

The shape does­n’t mat­ter. What mat­ters is that it’s real time, prop­er­ly dis­con­nect­ed, where you’re not run­ning the com­pa­ny. Where your only job is to let your mind do what it does best when you leave it alone.

One Ques­tion

What’s your way?

What pulls you out of improve­ment mode and into the kind of think­ing that dri­ves growth?

If you’ve got an answer, hold onto it. Pro­tect it. Use it more often. If you don’t have one yet, it’s worth finding.

Space. Silence. A chain­saw. What­ev­er works for you.

Watch the full inter­view below or read more in our recent case study with Bund­aberg here.

Addi­tion­al Resources:

Arti­cles

• Charg­ing Your Batteries
• Con­sis­ten­cy is the Key to Resilience
• How Do You Replen­ish and Recharge Your Batteries

Pod­cast

• Ep 34: Reset and Recharge Your Team for Success
• Ep 163: Exec­u­tive Burnout — Build­ing Your Resilience

Case Study

• Bund­aberg: The Local Brew­er that Became a Glob­al Sensation

Book: The 4 Forces of Growth 

• 4 minute Overview
• 45 Minute Webinar
• Buy on Amazon

Book: Scal­ing Up

• 45 Minute Webinar
• Arti­cle: 10 Years After Scal­ing Up: What I’ve Learned About Growth

Book: Your Oxy­gen Mast First

• Assess your­self
• Resilience Webi­nar