Don't Miss a Beat

Written By Drew Barbour – Managing Director

A solid strategy anchors you when the journey gets tough – and it is always tough!

At the recent State of the Province event, New Brunswick Premier Susan Holt joked that her team wanted her to come onstage to the song Ice Ice Baby.

I chuckled, appreciating the reference. Like the Premier, I came of age in the ’90s when Vanilla Ice’s A-side hit filled the floor at my junior high school dances with awkward teens busting a move.

As fun as the old-school hip-hop track is, though, it wasn’t the right tune for our new premier, who is tough but not icy–Susan Holt exudes optimism, warmth, and compassion. She is also intelligent, collaborative, and a fighter, all qualities we need to move forward.

Her election as New Brunswick’s first woman premier was a huge achievement for our province and for women in leadership positions in government and beyond. She came into the role with a clear plan, fresh ideas, and lots of energy from her team and the public.

And then, boom! Donald Trump gets elected within her first few weeks on the job. Within days of his inauguration, she’s facing down a historic trade war and thousands of jobs at risk in the province she’s just been tapped to lead.

In this light, I’d like to venture a more fitting soundtrack for our Premier: Kid, by Stephen Wilson Jr., a singer-songwriter whose work I try not to mangle too badly when I play it at open-mic sessions around Atlantic Canada. It speaks to me, personally and professionally, about life’s unexpected bumps and bruises. Here’s the part of the chorus that specifically came to mind:

Ain’t that the truth about the truth
Will put a world of hurt on you
A broomstick poke in the bike spokes…

The proverbial “broomstick poke in the bike spokes” right now is, of course, Trump’s tariff threat, which, even delayed until March, hangs over us all. Was our closest ally imposing crippling import taxes part of Premier Holt’s plan? I’d guess not. But now it’s part of her job, the challenging and rewarding work of leading.

At the State of the Province, she rose to the occasion. She spoke frankly of the cold, hard headwinds our economy is facing, even in this tense wait-and-see period while the tariffs are on hold, but she also exuded a sense of confidence, one based not on hope (or not only on hope) but on a plan.

On a cold late January night, Premier Holt laid out her vision for New Brunswick for the next four years, invited ministers on five key files–healthcare, education, housing, the environment, and the economy–to share their priorities, and discussed the metrics they’ll use to measure outputs. She went so far as to state her intention to be the most accountable and transparent government in our province’s history.

This all resonated deeply with me. It felt… familiar. Every day, our team undertakes the same work with businesses and organizations across Atlantic Canada to help them grow, create value, and find new opportunities.

What Premier Holt was describing, quite simply, was strategy.

It’s what every organization, no matter its size or sector, needs, especially right now: a clearly articulated vision, a reasonable number of priorities, a strong value proposition that resonates with customers and stakeholders, and clear metrics.

It really is that simple, and I applaud Premier Holt for not overcomplicating things. Yes, she will have to deal with complex issues. But her essential plan–her strategy–is compelling, clear and concise.

In future posts, I’ll dig deeper into the essentials of strategy and the opportunities I see here in Atlantic Canada. But for now, in a time of great stress and uncertainty, I suggest we each take a break, take a cue from Premier Holt, and take stock of our plans for the future.

If you’ve been putting them off, this is the perfect time to initiate strategic conversations about your business and its future. Part of a good strategy is anticipating risks that might arise over the years to come. How might you get out in front of them, not just to mitigate their harm but also to take advantage of the new opportunities they present?

It might also be helpful to remember that Trump, as singular and extreme as he is, is just the latest broomstick poke. Five years ago, it was the COVID pandemic. There were many other broomsticks before that, and there will be more to come. The best way to get through them is by being grounded in the essentials: Who are you (what’s your why)? What do you do well? Who do you do it for? Why should they care (unique value proposition)?

I’ll leave you with a final song quote from another Stephen Wilson Jr. track, I’m a Song. While it’s ostensibly about a relationship, I think his lyrics, seen in a certain light, can also speak to the power of a strong, clear plan:

I’m the words that’ll hit you, that’ll get you where you’re goin’
So you never go there alone.

Drew Barbour is the Managing Director of MC Advisory. A business transformation strategist with deep global experience, he’s thrilled to have returned home to New Brunswick to help Atlantic Canadian companies thrive, raise his kids, and get out his guitar every Thursday night for open mic.