The Key to Great Strategies? Timing.

What role does timing play in strategic thinking — for an organization’s growth, but also for you and your career? New York Times best-selling author Daniel Pink says it can play a big part in how successful your strategy will be.

“I think people underestimate timing,” he tells Dear HBR hosts Alison Beard and Dan McGinn. “We’re very intentional in our lives about what we do. But when it comes to when we do things, we don’t take it seriously enough. We’re not intentional. And it has a material effect at very many levels of peoples’ work lives.”

In this episode, taped live in Washington, D.C., Pink discusses what to do when your company is slow to seize a market opportunity or the right career opportunity arrives at the wrong time. Whether an opportunity is for your company, your team, or your own career, timing really is everything.

Key episode topics include: career planning, decision making and problem solving, psychology, timing, merger, enterprise software, start-ups, when to quit.

HBR On Strategy curates the best case studies and conversations with the world’s top business and management experts, to help you unlock new ways of doing business. New episodes every week.

• Listen to the original Dear HBR episode: Perfect Timing (Live) (Nov 2019)
• Find more episodes of Dear HBR
• Discover 100 years of Harvard Business Review articles, case studies, podcasts, and more at HBR.org.