Dear colleagues: Just when we begin to see glimmers of the emergence of whatever comes next, we are seemingly plunged into massive uncertainty once again, with geopolitical tensions and armed conflict that seemed unthinkable. The Washington… Read more »
Articles
Thought Sparks Wrap Up – January 2022
Dear colleagues: I just got used to the idea of not saying “Happy new year” and here it is, February. It’s been fun so far – I returned to teaching in person on campus in… Read more »
Thought Sparks Wrap Up – November 2021
Thought Sparks Wrap Up – August 2021
Dear colleagues, Welcome to the monthly newsletter, with a wrap-up of my weekly Thought Sparks and some things to watch out for in September. If you’d like to get the weekly Thought Sparks delivered right… Read more »
We need to talk about five mechanisms to avoid future catastrophe.
Humans are surprisingly adaptive creatures – many of the changes wrought by the pandemic would have been unthinkable in an earlier era. And yet, we’re also remarkably blind to changes happening right under our noses. … Read more »
Thought Sparks Wrap Up – July 2021
Dear Colleagues, Welcome to the monthly wrap-up of my weekly Thought Sparks newsletters. A no-nonsense guide to measuring innovation mastery (July 6, 2021) What is it like to work in an organization that has attained… 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 »
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 »
The Inside Baseball of Corporate Transformation
Rita McGrath and Ron Boire Hired to transform a company? The odds are against you A recent McKinsey global survey found that only 26% of executives they questioned considered their efforts to address specific performance… Read more »
A New Social Contract? Part 3: So Many Policies, So Little Space!
Welcome to part 3 of a three-part series, looking at the likelihood of a fundamental transformation of the basic social contract in the United States, along the lines of Roosevelt’s New Deal. D x V… Read more »
A New Social Contract? Part 2: Reaching for a Vision
Welcome to part 2 of a three-part series, looking at the likelihood of a fundamental transformation of the basic social contract in the United States, reflecting Roosevelt’s New Deal. The framework combines two uncertainties to… Read more »
A New Social Contract? Part 1: Defining the Issues
Back in March of 2020, I applied the techniques from “Seeing Around Corners” to what kind of economic and social future we might anticipate post-pandemic. One of the scenarios I outlined was a return to… Read more »