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 problems and to sustain that… Subscribe for Premium Thought Sparks Content »
Insights and ideas
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… Subscribe for Premium Thought Sparks Content »
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… Subscribe for Premium Thought Sparks Content »
What Now? The Board Agenda for 2021
“What’s next” is the question on everyone’s mind. The reality is, we don’t – and can’t – know for sure. What we can do is articulate our best hypotheses and assumptions and then pay close… Subscribe for Premium Thought Sparks Content »
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 »
Unanticipated Consequences of a Potential Baby Bust
Although the early warning signs that an inflection point is on the way are often detectable years, even decades, in advance, trying to time most inflection points is incredibly frustrating. Not so with demographics. In… Subscribe for Premium Thought Sparks Content »
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 »
Team Effectiveness in a World Turned Virtual
Productively managing groups of human beings who have to produce some kind of joint output was tough enough in the “before times.” Today, it’s exponentially harder, with issues compounded by the reality that many of… Subscribe for Premium Thought Sparks Content »
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: Rita McGrath is a faculty member at… Read more »
Too Important to Ignore: Team Effectiveness
It’s hard to know how to respond to events of the magnitude of those that have been in the headlines, except to acknowledge that the quest for social justice feels really, really, enormous. As readers… Read more »
Designing Business Experiments
As the COVID crisis drags on, casting us all into the world of having to make assumptions, rather than being able to rely on facts, a question I get a lot is how to design… Subscribe for Premium Thought Sparks Content »