Big, expensive unions of large and unwieldy companies almost never work out well. The sudden termination of CNN+ is but the latest casualty in a long history of things that began with a lot of… Read more »
business strategy
When terrible things happen to good innovation projects…
OK, we have finally realized that innovation and transformation are not optional for the long run well-being of a large enterprise. But that is a far cry from having the capability to do something with… Read more »
Assumptions we need to question now
My area isn’t geopolitics. I’ve been hesitating to opine about the horrible situation in Ukraine. It took a lot of people by surprise because Russia’s invasion flew in the face of so many assumptions we had… Read more »
A secret ingredient for competitive advantage? Good jobs.
Call it a great resignation, a great inspiration or a great rethinking, it’s clear that with respect to work life for many people things are never going to be the same as in the ‘before… Read more »
The essential art of smart politics
All too often, when we think about dealing with politics at work, it conjures up toxic and negative feelings. But if you want to make big ambitious changes happen, you’re going to have to get skilled… Read more »
Crazy, Unloved but Potentially Transformational – What’s in your Loonshot nursery?
Author Safi Bahcall introduced the term “loonshots” to describe ventures with game-changing potential that nobody thought would work and whose champions were ridiculed. Which raises the question of how you keep the crazy ideas alive… Read more »
It worked great, until it didn’t: The surprising, but perhaps foreseeable, shutdown of Drinkworks
Two companies needed a new growth vector. One was great at branding alcoholic beverages. The other was great at making home appliances that customers could use to create self-serve beverages. A match made in heaven!… Read more »
Secretive Pricing, poorly served patients and unintended consequences – will insulin go the way of hearing aids?
Some settings create ripe conditions for a business-model destroying inflection point. Unhappy customers, favoring one stakeholder group at the extreme expense of others and operating in such a way that even your allies can’t defend… Read more »
Uncertain about the future? A well-defined strategy can help
The word “strategy” has come to mean anything in an organization that is important. But great strategies drive real purpose and decision-making. Define one that is meaningful, and you can guide real-time choice-making across your… Read more »
Congratulations on the official publication of Lead from the Core, Jay Steinfeld!
“We weren’t there to sell blinds. We were there to become better than we ever thought we could be”. This mantra, expressed by Jay Steinfeld, founder of Blinds.com underscores what it looks like when leaders create a… Read more »
Somebody always knew: A conversation between Amy Edmondson and Rita McGrath, top-ranked global thinkers
The topic of psychological safety has taken the world by storm as we realize that in a VUCA (volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous) world, there is a huge premium on fast learning. With the recent… Read more »
The latest for the Flops File – Zillow Offers
It takes a special combination of ingredients to land in my “flops” file. You have to lose your parent company at least $50 million. You probably started out with big ambitious goals, all-at-once funding, leaders… Read more »