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"What To Ask helps leaders create valuable connections with customers, and It Looked Great On Paper covers how and why to convert that insight into strategy execution. This book is the manual I wish I'd had when countless founders and leaders first came to me. It's the culmination of everything I've learned about why great strategies fail to make it to the front lines."
-Andrea Belk Olson, Author of "What To Ask"
“As this book demonstrates via numerous practical examples, strategy execution comes down to action by individuals. I recommend this easy-to-read book as a useful guide to keeping strategy on track - as well as humans.”
Dr. Graham Kenny
Managing Director, Strategic Factors
Regular author in the Harvard Business Review
“Strategy often looks compelling on paper and then disappears in the everyday reality of organisational life. Andrea Belk Olson shows how to close that gap. Specific, practical, and packed with fascinating examples, It Looked Great on Paper cuts through the myths of strategy execution and gives leaders a clear steering guide for turning intent into action.”
David Lancefield
Founder, Strategy Shift, strategy adviser, HBR contributor, and former Senior Partner, Strategy&
"Andrea didn’t hand us an off-the-shelf culture model; she listened deeply, challenged our thinking and helped us translate our strategy into a framework of operational mindsets. These mindsets align us on how we deliver operational excellence for our clients and work best as a team. The [Steering Guide] framework gave our people a common language for making decisions and aligning priorities translating into everyday action. That clarity has been invaluable, helping culture become not an abstract aspiration, but a practical guide for how we work, serve our clients and move forward together.”
Leslee Mallinson
Senior Vice President, Communications
Balfour Beatty
Andrea Belk Olson began her career helping build a tech startup from $10k in seedmonies to a multi-million-dollar organization in only 8 years. She went on to serve as the first female corporate executive at multiple global companies and an I-CORPS certified instructor with the University of Iowa’s Venture School and other applied entrepreneurial programs.
Trained as a behavioral scientist, strategist, and customer-centricity expert, Andrea founded a change agency specializing in helping multi-billion-dollar organizations operationalize their strategies and embed them within their corporate DNA.
Andrea is a contributing author for Harvard Business Review, Entrepreneur Magazine, Rotman Magazine, World Economic Forum, a keynote presenter for national conferences, and a TEDx Speaker. She has also held a Masterclass for Harvard Business Review on organizational change and employee buy-in, as well as had two of her works selected for Harvard Business Review's "Definitive Management Ideas of the Year", in their 10 Must Reads of 2026, and had the #1 podcast episode from HBR On Strategy.
Andrea has published three business books, with her fourth (this one) launching in 2026.
Andrea speaks to executives, boards, and leadership teams about building strategically-driven organizations.
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