When news broke that the United States government moved to close the $800 de minimisthreshold, the tariff-free customs exemption long leveraged by Chinese cross-border platforms Shein and Temu to ship direct-to-consumer parcels via air freight, industry observers treated it as a sudden geopolitical shock. But from a strategic auditing perspective, this outcome was not a surprise. It was a structural load […]
Why Systemic Alignment Across the Strategy Links Beats Isolated Tactics Every Time I walked into a Pop Mart store in Shanghai and saw something unexpected: a Chinese company had built a global consumer brand around something most businesses struggle to manufacture: emotion. The shelves were filled with collectible figures. Customers were examining boxes, anticipating what might be inside, comparing figures, […]
We all know King Solomon for his wisdom. He is history’s ultimate poster child for deep strategic insight. If he were a modern CEO, he would be the visionary founder featured on every business magazine cover, the legendary entrepreneur who inherited a stable organization from his father, David, and rapidly scaled it into a golden conglomerate of unprecedented wealth, complete […]
Every year, I meet business owners who ask essentially the same question. “Our products are good. Our people work hard. So why aren’t we growing?” It is a fair question. What’s interesting is that another company, in the same industry, serving the same customers, often grows much faster. Same economy. Same regulations. Sometimes even the same suppliers. Yet the results […]
Recently, I attended the Philippine premiere of Dear You, a moving film about overseas Chinese pursuing a better future while remaining connected to their roots. Despite its modest budget, lack of major stars, and dialogue largely in the Teochew dialect, the film found a wide audience because its story felt authentic and universal. It reminded us that behind every immigrant journey […]
Author’s Note: This is an expanded version of last Friday’s article on the value proposition as a contract for relevance. When companies fail to deliver on their value proposition, the usual explanation is poor execution. Sales overpromised. Operations underdelivered. Customer service failed to manage expectations. Sometimes that is true. But when the same failures repeat across markets, teams, and leadership cycles, […]
Author’s Note: This is Step 1 of a 6-step Logic chain based on the PILA reasoning stack—Problem, Insight, Logic, and Assumptions. Most organizations misclassify what a value proposition is. They treat it as messaging, positioning, or branding clarity. A communication asset owned by marketing and expressed through differentiation language. This is a category error. A value proposition is not what […]
A Discovery in Shanghai Sometimes, the most meaningful strategic journeys begin with a simple question. During a visit to the Shanghai Museum, I walked through galleries filled with reminders of China’s extraordinary past: ancient bronze vessels, calligraphy, and artifacts that carried stories from civilizations that rose, flourished, and disappeared thousands of years ago. Then I saw something that made me […]
What Shanghai’s invisible operating system teaches us about removing barriers, building trust, and creating systems that scale By Josiah Go Shanghai, July 14–18, 2026 I arrived in Shanghai expecting to be reacquainted with the skyline. After all, this is a city of futuristic towers, luxury districts, and the historic Bund overlooking the Huangpu River. But after several days on the […]
In strategy, activity is often mistaken for progress. Organizations move quickly to solutions because “doing something” feels productive. However, in the PILA (Problem, Insight, Logic, Assumptions) reasoning stack, the Problem is your structural foundation. If the “P” is weak, the entire stack—the forced insights, the fragile logic, and the risky assumptions—becomes an organizational liability. Solving the wrong problem well is […]