Every so often a new business model, often enabled by technology, takes the world by storm, attracts a lot of hype, eventually proves unable to live up to the headlines and disappears or becomes a… Read more »
Archives for 2021
3 Ways to Completely Mess Up Customer Surveys
Customer surveys are everywhere – and most of them aren’t going to offer one ounce of insight. Instead, learn to use them properly and for the right reasons. Customer surveys are inescapable these days. They… Read more »
A no-nonsense guide to measuring innovation mastery
What is it like to work in an organization that has attained high levels of innovation mastery? It’s growth-oriented, future-focused and unrelentingly positive. And by taking small steps, the place you work can be more… Read more »
Thought Sparks Wrap Up – June 2021
Dear Colleagues, We’re changing things up a little with the RMG newsletter! I’ll be summarizing my weekly Thought Sparks and pointing you to other useful resources as we go, Not Buying It – When your biggest… Read more »
The Future is Already Here Department: Hololens 2 Edition
Strategic inflection points create a 10X shift in your business – 10X more efficient, 10X more convenient, 10X easier – you get the idea. But they take a while – let’s look at one in… Read more »
On the folly of rewarding for business-as-usual when you are hoping for innovation
Even with the best intentions, reward systems in corporate life all too often mean that most of the people you need supporting innovation work flee from it. Here are some ideas for getting a better… Read more »
Employees Drive Competitive Advantage
The United States suffers from a proliferation of bad jobs. Squeezing every nickel out of labor costs might seem efficient, but no one is counting the price in terms of lost competitive advantages. Bad jobs… Read more »
Snow Melts from the Edges – Some Lessons from Buffer
Big changes seldom announce themselves conveniently at the conference table at headquarters. They bubble up, instead, at the ‘edges’ of the organization, where things are most exposed. This short story from Buffer illustrates. In Seeing… Read more »
Not Buying It: When your biggest challenge is non-consumption
We’re used to thinking of competition as the biggest challenge for getting customers to buy from us. But a much bigger challenge is non-consumption – especially when the reasons people aren’t buying have more to… Read more »
Focus and the Mission Driven Organization; It Doesn’t Have to be So Hard
Nonprofit organizations are expected to deliver results on multiple fronts. The result can be a nightmare for prioritization. A simple framework that spells out the tradeoffs between mission, resources, advantages and impact can help sort… Read more »
Strategy and the Resource Hostage Problem
The old watchword, “follow the money” will give you great insight into what really matters in any organization. It will also show you where the most significant blockers to transformation are likely to be. If… Read more »
Landing at the end of the road: Verizon’s decision to disengage from its media strategy
The very human tendency to continue to pursue a failing project, strategy or investment just increases the suffering when the inevitable happens. What are some indicators its time to pull the plug? Verizon’s recent decision… Read more »