I recently celebrated my professional birthday. It’s now been 10 years since I walked away from my last full-time corporate role. Feeling like it was time for something new, I chose to move from the stability of a corporate role to the rough and tumble world of freelancer. In my corporate career, I was the […]
We’re on the cusp of 2022 planning and many teams are actively looking for resources for the projects that will help their teams move beyond survival mode and towards growth projects beyond the pilot stage. Of course, ops teams are still stretched thin, so finding time, budget and resources is as challenging as when the […]
You see it on the calendar and the theme from the classic shark movie “Jaws” starts playing in the background of your mind. It’s painful, it’s not optional and it’s not any better in virtual space. When I describe a group’s strategic programs update meeting in this way, I always get a smile, then a […]
You are the person and for ‘21 you are feeling very accountable: the path of the P&L is on your shoulders. If you are coming into the year with momentum, then congratulations…it’s easier to change the direction of an object that’s in motion. Here’s the insight: that momentum is created along process paths. Those processes […]
It’s going to happen in 2021. There will be two paths for firms: diminishing returns or vibrancy. The rising tide will only lift well prepared boats. The danger is that we’re going to be tempted to spend most of our time trying to get “back to normal” – and we’re going to find out that […]
It’s nearly Fezziwig time – a reference to the beloved Dickens story, A Christmas Carol. Fezziwig was a jovial business owner who was known for throwing warm and family-friendly business parties on Christmas Eve. As we prepare for our own end-of-year celebrations, many of us are being faced with the proverbial fly in the punchbowl […]
I’ve had a series of calls with key leaders in the last few weeks as they prepare for 2021. The consensus is it’s setting up to be a hybrid year: we’ll still be in COVID limbo, with client firms that are full digital in remote work, manufacturers that have live operations and remote R&D, and […]
At our core, humans are pattern-creating machines. To avoid cognitive overload, we do many, many things the same way every day. We get our coffee, put our pencil down, and even walk in the same paths over and over again. We like working with people who are like us and reflect back to us what […]
The first time I encountered it was as a business development leader charged with traveling globally to win business with cell phone manufacturers. I traveled to more than 20 countries and regardless of the sign on the door, they all had it. I’d move from the lobby to one of two zones: The creation zone […]
Docking. It’s one of the most delicate and potentially dangerous parts of space flight. Imagine two objects traveling more than 17,000 miles per hour with significant mass and unconstrained three-dimensional movements subject to orbital mechanics. Any misalignment and the maneuver is a miss at best and catastrophic at worst. This used to be completed by […]
