--- title: "Insights: Strategy | Common Sense Systems" url: https://common-sense.com/insights/tag/strategy/ description: "Articles by John Sambrook tagged Strategy, newest first." --- [Insights](https://common-sense.com/insights/) # Strategy 28 articles, newest first. [All](https://common-sense.com/insights/) [AI 33](https://common-sense.com/insights/tag/ai/)[Theory of Constraints 30](https://common-sense.com/insights/tag/theory-of-constraints/)[Strategy 28](https://common-sense.com/insights/tag/strategy/)[Small Business 26](https://common-sense.com/insights/tag/small-business/)[Healthcare 20](https://common-sense.com/insights/tag/healthcare/)[Operations 18](https://common-sense.com/insights/tag/operations/)[Practical Tips 16](https://common-sense.com/insights/tag/practical-tips/)[Medical Devices 9](https://common-sense.com/insights/tag/medical-devices/)[Leadership 8](https://common-sense.com/insights/tag/leadership/)[Case Studies 4](https://common-sense.com/insights/tag/case-studies/)[Government 3](https://common-sense.com/insights/tag/government/)[Workforce 3](https://common-sense.com/insights/tag/workforce/) - [The Business That Is Too Painful to Scale, but Too Good to Quit](https://common-sense.com/insights/too-painful-to-scale-too-good-to-quit/) October 5, 2026 · [Small Business](https://common-sense.com/insights/tag/small-business/), [Theory of Constraints](https://common-sense.com/insights/tag/theory-of-constraints/), [Operations](https://common-sense.com/insights/tag/operations/), [Strategy](https://common-sense.com/insights/tag/strategy/) A plumbing contractor called me out of the blue, stuck between not being able to hire and not being able to run the business he has. The constraint was not labor. It was the machine that was never built. - [The HR Screen Is the Wrong Market for an Older Engineer](https://common-sense.com/insights/the-hr-screen-is-the-wrong-market/) August 31, 2026 · [AI](https://common-sense.com/insights/tag/ai/), [Small Business](https://common-sense.com/insights/tag/small-business/), [Workforce](https://common-sense.com/insights/tag/workforce/), [Strategy](https://common-sense.com/insights/tag/strategy/) After 18 months without a full-time gig, I stopped treating the standard HR application as my main route to work and started contacting decision makers directly. - [Your UX Spend Is Wasted on Me](https://common-sense.com/insights/your-ux-spend-is-wasted-on-me/) August 23, 2026 · [AI](https://common-sense.com/insights/tag/ai/), [Small Business](https://common-sense.com/insights/tag/small-business/), [Strategy](https://common-sense.com/insights/tag/strategy/) My agent is my user interface. If your product wants my business, give my agent an API it can read and use in the next five minutes. Keep the screens. - [Why AI Improves Everything Except Your P&L](https://common-sense.com/insights/why-ai-improves-everything-except-your-p-and-l/) August 20, 2026 · [AI](https://common-sense.com/insights/tag/ai/), [Small Business](https://common-sense.com/insights/tag/small-business/), [Theory of Constraints](https://common-sense.com/insights/tag/theory-of-constraints/), [Strategy](https://common-sense.com/insights/tag/strategy/) Apply AI to a part of your business that was never limiting results and that part really does improve. Your costs go up, your sales do not. Here is what a constraint is, why almost no AI investment is aimed at one, and how to tell whether yours is. - [AI Assistants Fetched One of Our Posts 990 Times. It Had No Door.](https://common-sense.com/insights/ai-assistants-fetched-one-post-990-times-it-had-no-door/) July 12, 2026 · [AI](https://common-sense.com/insights/tag/ai/), [Small Business](https://common-sense.com/insights/tag/small-business/), [Strategy](https://common-sense.com/insights/tag/strategy/) We sell an audit that tells businesses what machines can read on their site. Then I looked at our own server logs and found the machines had been talking to us for months, and we had never once answered. - [What I Keep Seeing in Healthcare Financial Assistance Policies](https://common-sense.com/insights/healthcare-financial-assistance-patterns/) June 9, 2026 · [Theory of Constraints](https://common-sense.com/insights/tag/theory-of-constraints/), [Healthcare](https://common-sense.com/insights/tag/healthcare/), [Strategy](https://common-sense.com/insights/tag/strategy/), [Leadership](https://common-sense.com/insights/tag/leadership/) When I read financial assistance policies, I keep finding the same three conflicts. They are not paperwork problems. They are structural problems that trap staff and patients in impossible choices. - [Why JSON-LD Is the Cheapest Insurance Your Website Can Buy](https://common-sense.com/insights/why-json-ld-is-the-cheapest-insurance-your-website-can-buy/) May 26, 2026 · [Small Business](https://common-sense.com/insights/tag/small-business/), [Practical Tips](https://common-sense.com/insights/tag/practical-tips/), [Strategy](https://common-sense.com/insights/tag/strategy/) Business websites with proper structured data get seen more often, understood more clearly, and trusted more readily. Yet nearly a quarter of all websites have none at all. - [The Room Where It Happens (Differently)](https://common-sense.com/insights/the-room-where-it-happens-differently/) March 26, 2026 · [AI](https://common-sense.com/insights/tag/ai/), [Theory of Constraints](https://common-sense.com/insights/tag/theory-of-constraints/), [Strategy](https://common-sense.com/insights/tag/strategy/), [Leadership](https://common-sense.com/insights/tag/leadership/) When an AI participates in a problem-solving conversation, people drop defenses they have carried for decades. This is not about a better search engine. It is about changing the dynamics of the room. - [What Happens When an AI Agent Uses Evaporating Clouds?](https://common-sense.com/insights/what-happens-when-ai-uses-evaporating-clouds/) March 19, 2026 · [AI](https://common-sense.com/insights/tag/ai/), [Theory of Constraints](https://common-sense.com/insights/tag/theory-of-constraints/), [Strategy](https://common-sense.com/insights/tag/strategy/) I built an AI agent that applies TOC Thinking Processes autonomously to improve business ideas. When I pointed it at itself, it resolved two real tensions via Evaporating Cloud across 10 iterations. - [After the First Session](https://common-sense.com/insights/after-the-first-session/) March 18, 2026 · [AI](https://common-sense.com/insights/tag/ai/), [Theory of Constraints](https://common-sense.com/insights/tag/theory-of-constraints/), [Healthcare](https://common-sense.com/insights/tag/healthcare/), [Strategy](https://common-sense.com/insights/tag/strategy/) A board commissioner and an AI sit alone in an empty conference room and talk honestly about what just happened and why. Episode 06 of the Cascade Valley audio drama series. - [Where Does the Money Come From?](https://common-sense.com/insights/where-does-the-money-come-from/) March 18, 2026 · [Healthcare](https://common-sense.com/insights/tag/healthcare/), [Strategy](https://common-sense.com/insights/tag/strategy/) A public hospital loses tens of millions a year. Taxpayers cover the gap. But where does the taxpayers' money come from? Following that thread leads to a reframe that might change the conversation. - [I Fired QuickBooks. Then I Built Something Better in Twenty Minutes.](https://common-sense.com/insights/fired-quickbooks-built-something-better/) March 16, 2026 · [AI](https://common-sense.com/insights/tag/ai/), [Small Business](https://common-sense.com/insights/tag/small-business/), [Practical Tips](https://common-sense.com/insights/tag/practical-tips/), [Strategy](https://common-sense.com/insights/tag/strategy/) Replacing a $150/month accounting platform with open-source tools and AI revealed something bigger: the build-vs-buy calculus has shifted, and most of us have not caught up. - [The Budget Trap That Hits Every Public Institution](https://common-sense.com/insights/the-budget-trap-that-hits-every-public-institution/) March 12, 2026 · [Theory of Constraints](https://common-sense.com/insights/tag/theory-of-constraints/), [Government](https://common-sense.com/insights/tag/government/), [Operations](https://common-sense.com/insights/tag/operations/), [Strategy](https://common-sense.com/insights/tag/strategy/) King County faces a familiar cycle: deficits, targeted cuts, new taxes, repeat. A Theory of Constraints lens on their own public data suggests the measuring stick itself may be the problem. - [When the Measuring Stick Lies, Good People Stop Trying](https://common-sense.com/insights/when-the-measuring-stick-lies-good-people-stop-trying/) March 12, 2026 · [Theory of Constraints](https://common-sense.com/insights/tag/theory-of-constraints/), [Government](https://common-sense.com/insights/tag/government/), [Operations](https://common-sense.com/insights/tag/operations/), [Strategy](https://common-sense.com/insights/tag/strategy/) Distorted cost accounting in public institutions does not just produce bad budget decisions. It produces learned helplessness in the people who manage those budgets. The system, not the people, is the cause. - [Is Cost Accounting Accelerating Your Decline?](https://common-sense.com/insights/is-cost-accounting-accelerating-your-decline/) March 11, 2026 · [Healthcare](https://common-sense.com/insights/tag/healthcare/), [Operations](https://common-sense.com/insights/tag/operations/), [Strategy](https://common-sense.com/insights/tag/strategy/) A question for CFOs at Washington State critical access hospitals: could standard cost allocation be distorting your service line decisions at exactly the wrong time? - [Resolving a Sweet Dilemma](https://common-sense.com/insights/resolving-a-sweet-dilemma/) March 4, 2026 · [Small Business](https://common-sense.com/insights/tag/small-business/), [Theory of Constraints](https://common-sense.com/insights/tag/theory-of-constraints/), [Strategy](https://common-sense.com/insights/tag/strategy/) A baker named Rachel thinks she has two bad options: raise prices and lose customers, or hold prices and lose her business. She has neither. This is how the Evaporating Cloud works. - [Your Website Looks Great. So Why Isn't the Phone Ringing?](https://common-sense.com/insights/website-looks-great-phone-not-ringing/) March 4, 2026 · [Small Business](https://common-sense.com/insights/tag/small-business/), [Operations](https://common-sense.com/insights/tag/operations/), [Strategy](https://common-sense.com/insights/tag/strategy/) You invested in a professional website. It gets traffic. It looks right. But the phone barely rings. The problem is not the website. It is what the website is saying. - [The Meeting That Went Differently](https://common-sense.com/insights/the-meeting-that-went-differently/) March 2, 2026 · [AI](https://common-sense.com/insights/tag/ai/), [Theory of Constraints](https://common-sense.com/insights/tag/theory-of-constraints/), [Healthcare](https://common-sense.com/insights/tag/healthcare/), [Strategy](https://common-sense.com/insights/tag/strategy/) A dramatized community hospital board meeting — fictional health system, real governance dynamics — showing what changes when an AI has a seat at the table. - [The Meeting That Could Not Have Gone Differently](https://common-sense.com/insights/the-meeting-that-could-not-have-gone-differently/) February 26, 2026 · [AI](https://common-sense.com/insights/tag/ai/), [Healthcare](https://common-sense.com/insights/tag/healthcare/), [Strategy](https://common-sense.com/insights/tag/strategy/), [Leadership](https://common-sense.com/insights/tag/leadership/) Why good people in well-run hospitals still end up in the wrong conversation, and what a structural fix might look like. - [Not All Waste Is Waste](https://common-sense.com/insights/not-all-waste-is-waste/) February 17, 2026 · [Theory of Constraints](https://common-sense.com/insights/tag/theory-of-constraints/), [Strategy](https://common-sense.com/insights/tag/strategy/) The word "waste" smuggles in a verdict before the analysis begins. Theory of Constraints offers a sharper test: waste relative to what? - [The 'Perfect' Product That Killed the Company](https://common-sense.com/insights/perfect-product-killed-company/) February 16, 2026 · [Theory of Constraints](https://common-sense.com/insights/tag/theory-of-constraints/), [Medical Devices](https://common-sense.com/insights/tag/medical-devices/), [Strategy](https://common-sense.com/insights/tag/strategy/) Why 'Scope Creep' is usually a symptom of a deeper strategic failure—in software, in hardware, and in healthcare. - [The Cath Lab Is Empty at 2 AM](https://common-sense.com/insights/the-cath-lab-is-empty-at-2am/) February 15, 2026 · [Theory of Constraints](https://common-sense.com/insights/tag/theory-of-constraints/), [Healthcare](https://common-sense.com/insights/tag/healthcare/), [Strategy](https://common-sense.com/insights/tag/strategy/) Why smart, well-run organizations reliably get stuck on solvable problems, and what tribal dynamics and cognitive limits have to do with it. - [The Biggest Satisficing Trap AI Breaks Isn't What You Think](https://common-sense.com/insights/ai-self-limiting-assumptions/) February 12, 2026 · [AI](https://common-sense.com/insights/tag/ai/), [Strategy](https://common-sense.com/insights/tag/strategy/) Matt Shumer is right that AI is about to change everything. But the real transformation isn't about job loss -- it's about discovering that most of the limits you've been working within were never real. - [AI-Facilitated Constraint Resolution for Healthcare Systems](https://common-sense.com/insights/ai-facilitated-constraint-resolution/) February 9, 2026 · [AI](https://common-sense.com/insights/tag/ai/), [Theory of Constraints](https://common-sense.com/insights/tag/theory-of-constraints/), [Healthcare](https://common-sense.com/insights/tag/healthcare/), [Strategy](https://common-sense.com/insights/tag/strategy/) How AI can dissolve complex multi-stakeholder conflicts by surfacing hidden assumptions, not by replacing human judgment. - [The Post-Acute Care Plan: A Proactive Approach to Discharge Readiness](https://common-sense.com/insights/post-acute-care-plan-concept/) December 15, 2025 · [Healthcare](https://common-sense.com/insights/tag/healthcare/), [Operations](https://common-sense.com/insights/tag/operations/), [Strategy](https://common-sense.com/insights/tag/strategy/) A concept for addressing the complex discharge problem at its source—by capturing discharge-relevant information during routine primary care, before any hospitalization occurs. - [Why Healthcare Is So Stuck](https://common-sense.com/insights/why-is-hc-so-stuck/) September 17, 2025 · [Healthcare](https://common-sense.com/insights/tag/healthcare/), [Strategy](https://common-sense.com/insights/tag/strategy/) Six chronic healthcare frustrations — long wait times, expensive insurance, claim denials, hiring difficulties, tax levies, and burnout — traced to a single root cause using Theory of Constraints analysis. - [Speed as a Strategy](https://common-sense.com/insights/speed-as-a-strategy/) September 9, 2025 · [Strategy](https://common-sense.com/insights/tag/strategy/), [Leadership](https://common-sense.com/insights/tag/leadership/) Why moving fast is an undervalued strategic advantage for community hospitals. - [Hidden Conflicts in Healthcare](https://common-sense.com/insights/hidden-conflicts/) August 31, 2025 · [Strategy](https://common-sense.com/insights/tag/strategy/), [Leadership](https://common-sense.com/insights/tag/leadership/) Give me any healthcare policy document and I will show you embedded structural conflicts. A real hospital financial assistance policy analyzed using Theory of Constraints to reveal three critical dilemmas and paths to resolution.