“If you want something new, you have to stop doing something old.” – Peter F. Drucker The leadership of any business cannot possibly know the ins and outs of every task, every job, every process in the organization. Yet, when it comes time to change, reinvent or restructure even part of the organization, leaders often […]
“Try not to become a man of success. Rather become a man of value.” ― Albert Einstein Around the turn of the century, Lego was in trouble. They had lost their way. Revenue and earnings looked like this: Through a series of events which reconnected them with their core purpose of creating value for their […]
Many will be familiar with the concept of the “iceberg of ignorance”. It was popularized in 1989 by a consultant named Sidney Yoshida. Yoshida conducted a study that concluded that top management was only aware of 4% of the problems in a company… only the tip of the iceberg. It was a popular concept that […]
(Excerpted from the Q4 2015 Update) “If a man is called to be a streetsweeper, he should sweep streets even as Michelangelo painted, or Beethoven composed music, or Shakespeare wrote poetry. He should sweep streets so well that all the hosts of heaven and earth will pause to say, here lived a great streetsweeper who […]
There’s a lot of talk about how dramatically different the Millennial generation is. And so, every organization is madly scrambling to “appeal” to this large cohort. For crying out loud, businesses are destroying private offices, installing slippery slides, and changing dress codes in the hopes of attracting talent and engendering loyalty. But they’re just people […]
I’ve seen or heard it referred to dozens of times and even succumbed to the false notion myself. It’s known as WIIFM or “What’s in it for Me”. It may have rightly applied in sales and marketing to encourage thinking from the customer’s perspective but in business transformation and change management, it may be one […]
In August of 2005, a large, violent tornado swept through our neighborhood indiscriminately uprooting trees, scattering personal possessions, and leveling homes. It’s something I’ll likely never forget. Our home was one of them. Although only a couple people were hurt physically, hundreds of lives in our community were suddenly and literally turned upside down. Tornadoes […]
Mature businesses tend to suffer from the same issue when it comes to innovation: inertia. Said another way, they have a hard time breaking away from the status quo. Consequently they continue to orbit around their core product portfolio developing little more than the equivalent of the next flavor of Jell-O. Which means results continue […]
The story is told1 that in 1944 Allied forces bombed and destroyed a prison camp factory in Hungary that was distilling human waste into alcohol to help fuel Hitler’s war effort. For the prisoners, mild relief turned to disgust at the thought of rebuilding the camp when the guards forced them to carry the rubble to […]
Any reasonable assessment of the current state of U.S. business leadership would at least conclude that it’s struggling. A look at the data tells an even bleaker tale. American business leadership is in a dark place of its own making and many in the leadership development industry are in the dark with them. Gallup’s State […]
