The Business Triangle

A model to kill analysis paralysis and lighten the load of the CEO

In the business world, executives are often awash in complexity to the point where it impedes taking positive action. Yet those difficult choices literally are the job. Others in the organization might be able to claim that a difficult decision is above their pay grade. But no CEO can make that claim. In spite of the complexity, you still need to make decisions and move forward.

I worked as a CEO in a complex, project management-intensive business. Nearly every task depended on the successful accomplishment of preceding tasks. These dependencies could be maddeningly intricate. Decisions made from one perspective had the potential to create unseen yet devastating consequences elsewhere. Over many years I repeatedly asked, “What situation are we in?”  

From this often-difficult experience, I created a model of an entire business that worked for me and which I frequently use to arm executives with better situational awareness. It’s a model to identify and speed up the handling of issues as they arise. My marketing friend insists I call it the Welch Business Triangle. 

Think of it this way: If running your business is akin to driving a car and having to make sense of everything you pass, then my model allows you to rapidly sort and decide. Using this model, you can understand, categorize, weigh, measure, prioritize, act, delegate or discard everything that whizzes past your windshield.

The Welch Business Triangle is a useful, simple, yet effective model that gives you this sort of real-time situational awareness across your whole business. 


The Welch Business Triangle 

Nearly every business situation you experience, whether problem or opportunity, can be classified into three categories:

  • Strategy and business model

    • Do we have the right strategy – with a product proven to create value for our customers, achieve competitive advantage, and leave enough left over to justify reinvestment? 

  • Money management

    • Do we have in place the capability to finance our business, manage profitability, and protect, control and track our financial resources?

  • People

    • Do we have the right people and are they properly organized, resourced, and aligned to achieve our goals?


Most frequently you will find yourself facing an issue that involves one of these three categories. Occasionally, an issue might involve two of the three. Rarely, an issue might involve all three.  


The simple act of classifying an issue into one of these three “homes” provides you with ample benefits. 

  • The first benefit is recognition and with it comes speed. This model gives you the ability to mentally position the issue: frame its boundaries, characterize it, put it in a pecking order, and know where in your organization it belongs. This in turn allows you to place responsibility for the issue with the right person. 

  • The second benefit is lightening your mental burden. The issue already has a home, removing the energy drain. In a world ripe with pressured and overwhelmed business executives, use every tool you can to shed needless accumulation on your endless to-do list. 

  • The final benefit is confidence. Using this model provides the executive the comfort and increased certainty to move with a bias towards action.


Of course, inside each of these three slices of the Welch Business Triangle there is significant business insight required to use the model to its fullest potential. I’ll be digging into each of the three segments in future writings. But just using the business triangle for quick classification is a great way to unlock the power of situational awareness.

Imagine how smart you would be if you understood the situation you were in when you were in it and respond in real time! Short of becoming a soothsayer, accurate situational awareness is as powerful a skill as we mere mortals can hope for.

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The Iceberg Theory