Understanding investor psychology can be baffling and frustrating for the managers of publicly traded corporations. For instance, despite what many would regard as a stellar track record of proven performance, CEO Mark Fields was fired… Read more »
Business Strategy
This month’s newsletter-All about what’s going on in the #grocery store
It’s ironic – Whole Foods did a great job of teaching all of us that natural and organic are desirable. And for about 30 years, that created a strong, high-margin position for them in the… Read more »
Innovation and Jobs-to-be-Done discussed in my latest newsletter
My latest newsletter offers observations and ideas that were discussed at two CEO Summits sponsored by Innosight and featuring keynotes by Clayton Christensen and myself. We discussed Clay’s terrific new book, Competing Against Luck, some… Read more »
‘If you can’t do it, we’ll find somebody who can’ can be disastrous
Recent corporate scandals and mishaps should remind us that what can feel like the creation of a pragmatic sense of urgency in the “C-Suite” can translate into deeply dysfunctional behavior farther down the organization. Just… Read more »
Why managing an opportunity portfolio leads to surprising investment decisions
There is no shortage of interesting strategic activity going on in the intertwining worlds of content creation, telecommunications and other forms of distribution. The recent sales of AOL and Yahoo! to Verizon are representative of… Read more »
Insight into unintended consequences-anticipating the effects of low oil prices
Over the years, I’ve cited and used some of the work done by the Futures Strategy Group principals in their development of very robust tools that help organizations anticipate (not predict) what might happen in… Read more »
Staring down a disengagement decision at Yahoo!
Yahoo and its CEO of three years, Marissa Mayer, have been in the news a lot lately. While Yahoo’s checkered history and frequent changes in leadership have not done the company’s reputation any favors, it still… Read more »
Secrets of the Superbosses – catch up on Syd Finkelstein’s latest book
Lorne Michaels. Ralph Lauren. Alice Waters. George Lucas. Larry Ellison. Miles Davis. And a dozen others. Business leaders and creative icons with tremendous track records who all have something else in common: they helped develop… Read more »
Ideas for a new business model for F. A. O. Schwarz
Well, no sooner had the digital ink dried on my piece about F. A. O. Schwarz closing their famous Fifth Avenue shop, when I received a communication from the company saying that I had it… Read more »
Why the failure of Google Glass Might be a Boon to Google
It’s official. The nerdy glasses with augmented reality and all kinds of image capturing technologies have been pulled from the market. Already, the pundits are dissecting what went wrong. It is indeed a juicy story,… Read more »
Say it isn’t so…my beloved iPod has gone into erosion
In my book The End of Competitive Advantage, I point out that even extremely potent advantages are subject to erosion. Even when they were once hugely popular, transformative and much loved, like the Apple iPod… Read more »
Organizational agility: The CEO’s top concern?
Last week at the Managing Partners’ Forum held on March 12 in London, Caspar de Bono of the Financial Times opened this high-level conference for leaders of professional services firms with an observation about the… Read more »