As Kevin shares the Tree Stump Theory, you see how familiarity blindness creeps in. It's a fascinating look into behavioral psychology, revealing how initial curiosity fades into complete disregard. A team spends months crafting a strategy, but those hidden tree stumps stay buried in the process. When the rest of the organization finally sees the rollout, those tree stumps suddenly become impossible to ignore. That shift in our perceptual understanding is where strategy execution pitfalls start to multiply.
This moment from our Retail Transformers conversation with Kevin Ertell, author of The Strategy Trap, reveals why strategies fail and how leaders can spot trouble before it spreads. This podcast clip is a unique perspective on our everyday mindset and conceptual knowledge, and how we adapt to our surroundings. The Tree Stump Theory becomes a powerful reminder that organizational blind spots are real, and strategy execution pitfalls don’t disappear just because a team stops noticing them.
If you’re leading transformation, this is your signal to look for the tree stumps your team no longer sees. Watch the complete episode for more insights like this!* https://youtu.be/35Szlax-6CA
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from *The Retail Razor: Retail Transformers* #podcast
*S2:E2 Your Retail Strategy Will Fail Unless You Fix This (Kevin Ertell Interview)*
*Released on February 12, 2026*
*Chapters*
00:00 The “Tree Stump Theory” Explained: Why Weird Things Become Normal
00:17 How Teams Stop Seeing the Tree Stump: Familiarity Blindness in Strategy
00:39 Rolling It Out to the Org: That's Where You Get Into Trouble
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