Traditional sales organizations used the concept of a sales “funnel” to describe the process through which potential customers move, ending up with sales at the end. Winners today have abandoned that way of thinking in… Read more »
strategy
Boris Johnson, How the Powerful Escape Consequences and Jeff Pfeffer’s Fantastic Book
One of Pfeffer’s 7 rules of power is that “Success Excuses (almost) Everything: Why This is the Most Important Rule of All. Which perhaps explains why Britain’s Boris Johnson was able to hang onto power… Read more »
Eyes glaze over when we talk about inflation? You’re not alone. But what you don’t know can hurt you.
Chart credit: https://www.macrotrends.net/2497/historical-inflation-rate-by-year For anybody born after about 1985, meaning most folks under 40, all this talk about inflation seems kind of old-timey. Indeed, as Public Radio host Kai Ryssdal (citing a story in… Read more »
Startups in distress – we’ve seen this movie before
Wired magazine offered an article on the state of things in startup-land and discovered, astonishingly, that “The Bad times are Coming for Startups.” But not every startup, of course, mainly the ones that blithely ignore entrepreneurship… Read more »
Bright Promise and Dashed Hopes – The AT&T Media Strategy Saga
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 »
You can’t avoid the digital dimension of your business, even if you wanted to!
Asking what your digital strategy is today is a lot like asking what your electricity strategy was at the turn of the last century. Seems absurd. Yet both questions reflect how a shift in an… Read more »
Say what???? The optimistic launch and ignominious end of CNN+
The announcement that after an expenditure of something like $300 million, CNN was going to pull its CNN+ streaming service after just a month in operation sent shock waves through the media and entertainment ecosystem…. Read more »
Can Agile Make Wherever You Work a Better Place?
The Great Resignation continues to gather steam as people in their millions re-evaluate their relationship with work. But not everyone has the luxury or the bandwidth to quit, at least not right now. And there is no guarantee… Read more »
10 Questions to Ask Before You Believe in a Business Model
Some business models are inherently more attractive than others, yet investors and other stakeholders often don’t ask the obvious questions. Here’s a checklist that makes sure you are not one of them. People like to make… Read more »
Think you Know Who Your Competition Is? Think Again!
In a world where we’re going from industries to arenas, how you define the competitive playing field can either give you an edge or set you back. If you believe the strategy textbooks, you would… Read more »
Upcoming Friday Fireside Chats
I’m hosting a series of fireside chats with people who have insightful ideas and actionable suggestions about how we navigate this unprecedented crisis. Do join us! About me: I’m a faculty member at Columbia Business… Read more »
In Good Company with Top Leadership Books!
This is a nice surprise! My book, Seeing Around Corners: How to Spot Inflection Points in Business Before They Happen, was recently awarded one of the Top Must-Read Leadership Books of 2020. The award recognizes… Read more »