In a delightful – and unexpected – turn of events, I’m going to be traveling to London to receive the Strategic Management Society’s CK Prahalad Award for scholarly impact on practice on September 17. These… Read more »
Leadership
Think everybody has a positive view of creativity? Think again!
Of course, we believe that creativity is a universally great thing – thinking otherwise is like dismissing hope or truth! In his conversational, approachable book, New York Times Pulitzer Prize winning author Matt Richtel takes… Read more »
How’s your teaming going?
The traditional model of how teams progress goes by stages – forming, storming, norming and performing. While it’s easy to remember, teams today don’t necessarily follow that model. They’re dispersed, virtual, temporary and potentially remote…. Read more »
How LEGO used Agile Principles to Accelerate Innovation
Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zCXMx7RcZ5I Agile methods – in which work is done in parallel by cross-functionally staffed teams – has been the subject of a lot of hype. How refreshing, then, to discover examples of firms… Read more »
Flywheels vs. Relationships – Why your business architecture matters to your initial marketing plan
In developing an initial marketing plan, it is crucial not to be confused about what kind of business architecture you are building in order to establish your initial metrics for success. Geoffrey Moore has a great… Read more »
7 Ways to Take Smart Career Risks: Lessons from Sharon Price John, CEO of Build-A-Bear Workshop
Fear is one of the great barriers to career advancement. Sharon Price John’s fabulous career is full of lessons on how to get past those fears and get out of your own way. Being afraid… Read more »
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 »
You can’t tackle complex systems with linear thinking
As Daniel Kahnemann has pointed out to us, while the human brain is a remarkable organ, it also has its limitations. One of these is that it is built to conserve energy. What that in turn… Read more »
Pandemic – and reopening – surprises
When an inflection point comes to a head, human beings are remarkably ingenious in adapting to its requirements. It may not be fun, but we figure it out. But when the changes wrought by the… Read more »
Thought Sparks Wrap Up – May 2022
Dear colleagues: It sure was nice to be back in person on our gorgeous new Columbia Business School campus. My course on growth and change, called Leading Strategic Growth and Change received an evaluation of… Read more »
Counting down Our Top Ten List of Discovery Driven Planning misses – Part 1 (10 through 6)
Through Valize, Ron Boire and I have been working with clients to use the tools we have developed to bring Discovery Driven Planning / Discovery Driven Growth to life. Although we’ve got years of experience… Read more »
Thought Sparks Wrap Up – April 2022
Dear colleagues: Just when you thought the world has learned the many lessons of discovery-driven planning, some huge, ambitious project gets shot down yet again – whether for business reasons or otherwise – and we… Read more »