$12.7 trillion! That’s the projected size of the global construction industry in 2022, according to one recent analysis. In the US alone, construction employs some 10 million workers. And while it’s a relatively slow-growth… Read more »
Thought Sparks
Building a Proficiency for Game Changing Innovation and Growth: Mastering the Opportunity Portfolio
When you ask why large companies have a problem building an innovation proficiency, you get back all the usual suspects: “We have silos.” “It’s nobody’s job.” “We’re afraid of failure.” “It’s unpredictable.” And what do all… Read more »
The Changing Business of People
HR has always wanted a seat at the table. That day may finally be here. Be careful what you wish for! HR Challenges in a Tour of Duty Context HR used to be pretty straightforward. … Read more »
Big Food and the Revolution in the Ingredients Business
The rules of the game used to be pretty simple for large food companies: Make massive quantities of tasty and inexpensive (if not particularly nutritious) food products, create memorable brands around them, and use their… Read more »
Finding your arena – a new book and new toolkit
I was delighted to read Steve Blank’s great post featuring the work of my friend and colleague Marc Gruber. Marc and I have been colleagues since my days in the entrepreneurship program at Wharton and… Read more »
How to Stop Making Assumptions—and Start Seeing Around Corners
Last month, I was thrilled to attend Parliament’s PowerShift, a gathering of diverse opinion leaders, change-makers, creatives, and corporates seeking to find interesting solutions to some of today’s biggest challenges. At the event, I had… Read more »
Let’s Go Back to Boring Banking
After the Great Depression and through the 1980s, the financial sector was regulated to serve the rest of the economy. Today, it serves mostly itself. It’s time that changed. When even Larry Fink is talking… Read more »
How Inflection Points in the Hotel Business Change Where You Lay Your Head
In 1977, James Eyster, then a Ph.D. student at Cornell, published a book that would completely change the nature of the hotel business worldwide. His idea could not sound more boring—unless you saw the impact… Read more »
Netflix and the Battle for Your Disposable Time
In my forthcoming book, Seeing Around Corners (now available for pre-order wherever you buy books), one of the major themes is that a major blind spot for organizations is that they tend to see the… Read more »
When Hierarchy Is Not an Option: A New Organizational Model for Fast-Moving Contexts
Earlier this month, I spoke at the Human Resources Directors Conference in the United Kingdom. At the conference, I shared some material excerpted from my forthcoming book, Seeing Around Corners: How to Spot Inflection Points… Read more »
How to Lead an Organization Through an Inflection Point
I was recently at a conference with Curt Carlson, a brilliant leader of innovation who for many years ran SRI, the research organization responsible for the invention of Apple’s Siri and many other multi-billion dollar… Read more »
Preparing for Time Zero Events in Banking
We cannot predict the future, but we can prepare in advance. So how do you develop early warning signs that things are about to change in an industry? One technique for identifying leading indicators is… Read more »