Dear colleagues:
The first quarter of 2022 was as momentous as any I have ever experienced. It was emotional to join my colleagues from the LvBS Business School, the Business School of the Catholic University of Ukraine, remotely to discuss what strategy even means amidst so much uncertainty. In our webinar, which incorporated a short presentation and many, many questions, we explore this topic.
The answer is that when you are lost, strategy is like a map that can calm you down, provide a sense of direction and help set priorities. I so admire their care for one another and investment in the future.
Meanwhile…
My course on growth and change, called Leading Strategic Growth and Change is scheduled to run next May, for a week, in person! Click here for more information.
If you are curious about my upcoming schedule, your go-to resource is my “events” page. Click here to view it.
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This month’s Thought Sparks
The Essential Art of Smart Politics (March 1, 2022)
Many people think of engaging in organizational politics as smarmy self-dealing. If you want to be a change-maker, however, you’re going to need to get others to do different things than they might do absent your intervention. This article takes you through a systematic approach.
Good Jobs can Be a Secret Ingredient for Competitive Advantage (March 8, 2022)
Applebees was quick to denounce the position taken by executive Wayne Pankratz with regard to how to grind employees into the ground by cutting their already poverty-level wages still more. Nonetheless, Pankratz did little more than put into writing the awful job policies that are a reality for a huge swath of the American workforce. Instead, what if we used a good jobs strategy?
Assumptions We Need to Question Now (March 15, 2022)
This may be one of the more important pieces you’ll read from me this year. With the war in Ukraine and other novel developments, many of the assumptions we’ve been making about the context for democracy, let alone business, are now in doubt. In this piece, I go through what I feel may be the most significant ones.
Knowing When to Pull the Plug – Part 1 (March 22, 2022)
Most corporate ventures will eventually end before they make it all the way to the market. As long as this happens quickly and cheaply, that’s not such a terrible thing. But often, unfortunately, the process is drawn out and expensive, because people aren’t asking the hard questions all along the way. Here’s the first half of a compilation of factors that might lead you to reconsider the viability of a project.
Knowing When to Pull the Plug – Part 2 (March 29, 2022)
More on the tricky subject of when you decide that a once-promising new idea is just not going to be successful, or successful enough, to break through to commercial success.
In the Press
It was an honor to be invited to speak to the Business School Community of the Catholic University of Ukraine, which is based in Lviv. My hosts talked about turning their campus into a refugee and supply center and how they have been disbursed to the four corners of the earth to escape the war. Nonetheless, their commitment to learning and thinking about their future is remarkable. You can watch a recording of the webinar here:
https://lvbs.com.ua/en/events/rita-gunther-mcgrath-the-new-playbook-for-strategy-in-uncertain-times/
Roopa Unnikrishnan of The Business Ecosystem Alliance discusses the changing nature of competitive advantage and ecosystem-relevant strategies.
In this Fast Company article, Kaihan Krippendorff describes things people usually get wrong when they are trying to predict the future, citing Amy Webb, Faith Popcorn, and myself.
https://www.fastcompany.com/90732637/3-things-youre-doing-wrong-when-you-try-to-plan-for-the-future
Madeleine Albright was one of my role models – super smart, wickedly funny, and creative, she used her appearance – especially her many pins – to get her points across. In this segment on Marketplace, I reflect on her as a role model.
In this Innovation Leader podcast, a panel of experts goes through what firms – some the usual suspects, but some not – do to sustain their innovation programs.
It was great chatting with Jeff Gothelf on his “Forever Employable” podcast about how you make yourself fit for purpose in a tour of the duty career world.
https://jeffgothelf.com/blog/episode-28-books-reputation-and-networking-with-rita-mcgrath/
Free Demo Course!
Meet Valize!
We now have a recorded demo of the SparcHub system available for your perusal
You can tap into an explanation of the theory that makes the Discovery Driven Growth system facilitated by the SparcHub system as well as an overview of product features at this link. I’d love to know what you think of it!
We’re launching our first cohort of online learners this May!
The program will launch in May with a combination of live-online sessions led by myself and online recorded sessions that participants can take in their own time. You can find out all about the current modules at this link. Want to experience what the course is like? We have a demonstration mini-course for that offered at no charge.
Get in Touch, Keep in Touch and an invitation to shape the agenda
We’re all about learning new things in 2022. You can follow me on Twitter (@rgmcgrath), on Instagram (@ritamcgrathofficial), on LinkedIn and on YouTube.
And an invitation: If there are topics you’d like to see me explore in a Thought Spark, let me know!
Warmly,
Rita