Competitive advantages have life cycles – born in innovation, scaled up with launching, making a profit by operating and eventually transforming to the next advantage. Unfortunately for leaders in today’s fast-paced contexts, we tend to only… Read more »
Leadership
Big Food, the Diet Industrial Complex and now, miracle drugs?
Three-quarters of all Americans are overweight or obese. Despite the diet industry’s ballooning revenue at some $80 billion, whatever they are doing clearly is not working – which is a great business model but a… Read more »
Pick mine, pick theirs, but pick a tool and stick with it!
The utilization of management tools, ideas and frameworks has a strange cyclicality to it. The boss reads another book and suddenly we’re all required to calculate Net Promoter Scores! It’s worth taking a critical eye to the… Read more »
Management Tools: Cycling through the concepts
Everybody wants to be the author of a popular management tool. But at the end of the day, it’s useful to realize that many have a lot in common – what makes the difference, as… Read more »
Thinking Wrong: How to Trick our Brains into Being More Innovative
Once we’ve learned how to do something, we become “unconsciously competent” at it. In order to break with the predictable path and move forward, what my good friend and colleague, Greg Galle, suggests is that… Read more »
Frustrated with a culture that isn’t innovative? You’re probably missing a key management practice.
Leading strategic growth and change doesn’t need to be a mystery! If only we taught people the skills necessary for three key leadership roles, it could be a lot more systematic and corporate transformation efforts… Read more »
What We Should Learn From the Tragic Failure of the Titan
My last “Thought Spark” was published before the dreadful implosion of the Titan submersible. Then, I was talking about intelligent failures. This time around, let’s focus on what my colleague Amy Edmondson would call a… Read more »
Are you squandering your intelligent failures?
Just back from an amazing week spent with thinkers, do-ers and executives considering culture at Novartis. Amy Edmondson, my dear friend, was there and both of us remain stunned that people are still confused about… Read more »
NPV doesn’t work for risky, high-potential projects. Here’s a better approach.
This article was co-authored with Claus Hirzmann of Strategic Finance “Never test the depth of the river with both feet.” Ironically, this is the very behavior that plagues many of the innovations that ended up in… Read more »
Can’t Buy Me Growth…A Cautionary Tale
This article was co-authored with Alex Van Putten of Cameron & Associates We’ve been talking about what gets investors excited about a public company’s prospects and maintain that it’s when a management team can credibly… Read more »
Thought Sparks Wrap Up – May 2023
Uncertainty has a way of messing with people, and we sure saw much of that in May. With layoffs, trimmed budgets, and lumbering threats like the US approaching the debt ceiling, our innovation colleagues are… Read more »
Are you boring your Investors? Here’s how to tell.
This article was co-authored with Alex Van Putten of Cameron & Associates It isn’t hunger for short-term results. It’s not about meeting every number. It’s not about never being surprised. What investors really want is to… Read more »