Category: Strategy

Reading Time: < 1 minute It’s hard to believe that the legendary Peter Drucker’s been gone for over a decade; perhaps it’s the timeliness of his work that keeps him top of mind with so many executives. Many companies will be focusing on their strategic plans during December and it’s easy to get lost in

Reading Time: < 1 minute Most of us realize that thanks to science, and perhaps more importantly, scientific method, that we enjoy a level of technology and therefore comfort that the kings and queens of a century ago would have envied.  Maybe we should apply the scientific method to how we run our businesses. Specifically,

Reading Time: < 1 minute Where have all the leaders gone? Or at the very least, where are they going? The quest for experienced and effective leadership is getting harder… and it is not only the executive search and placement companies taking notice. Companies of all sizes are increasingly finding it difficult to successfully fill

Reading Time: < 1 minute For the past 30 years, Michael Porter of Harvard has been to the study of strategy what W. Edwards Deming was to Total Quality Management.  The size and scope of Porter’s remarkable body of work has, unfortunately, discouraged many from pursuing his contributions to this most important subject. A colleague

Reading Time: < 1 minute Professional sports team employ full time talent scouts.  Do you?    You may not need to go as far as the sports team do in this regard, but with the economy at near full employment, all the low hanging fruit has moved further up the tree. Wouldn’t you be well served

Reading Time: < 1 minute Being a C-Level Executive means having a point of view about the future.  Many executives limit their thinking about the future to the initial impact of a particular change but don’t think about what happens after that. Business (and life) is often like a row of dominoes:  we push one

Reading Time: < 1 minute “Technological advancement is greatly overestimated in the short run and greatly underestimated in the long run,” remarked science fiction writer Arthur C. Clarke.  The Director of Industry Strategy for Adobe shares  “6 Tectonic Shifts in Tech Every Executive Should Know” based on research at the World Economic Forum.  You have probably

Reading Time: < 1 minute Quality isn’t everything.  Case in point: Domino’s Pizza.  Founder Tom Monaghan discovered that the key to success in the pizza business wasn’t great pizza, but free delivery.    But no competitive advantage lasts forever and the company’s subpar pizza began to deliver subpar results, no matter how fast it’s delivered, especially

Reading Time: < 1 minute A Strange and Powerful Truth:  Alan and Brian Beaulieu of ITR Economics in a short but important blog entry dispel some nonsense about declining American incomes…and issue a warning about the consequences for CEOs of rising ones.  Find out what they have to say about Managing Your Labor Costs. Take

Reading Time: < 1 minute Great advice can come from unexpected quarters if we are ready for it.  To wit:  check out this short story about how a father’s advice created a great salesman and how we often make our jobs harder than they need to be.  Consider some surfer dude sales advice before you