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 […]
You’re up early, hit the Peleton, and then grab a coffee and flip open your email. There it is right on top of the stack: another note from sales requesting a pricing variance. This is the third one this month…what started as a one-time ask is rapidly becoming a jailbreak. You’ve got an active, multi-year […]
I remember it clearly: we had just released a new product, and as demand grew, the manufacturing team just could not deliver. This new device was used in a unique way, and there was a performance issue that had evaded our typical quality checkpoints. The sales team had been aggressively incentivized to switch clients over […]
Now that we’re beyond the initial lockdown and pause, I’m seeing many firms under immense pressure to move straight from strategy to implementation without taking stock diagnostically of their capabilities. Productive implementation is something that we used to take for granted – but with the accelerated shifts driven by remote work in the face of […]
Iceberg averted. I have long used this metaphor – when we have a substantial project we need to complete within an organization, the path between the vision and the implementation is strewn with icebergs. We see the top of them, yet we know that more than half of their ferocity lives below the surface. These […]
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 […]
The deck is not enough. In 1914, Lawrence Sperry introduced the autopilot, and with it, the idea that we can delegate the piloting duties of flying an airplane to a set of gyroscopes, analog computers, and servos. This technology has been a marvel for pilots, and has contributed immensely to the fantastic safety record we […]
One of the hardest things to do in this post-COVID environment is to make high-quality investment decisions. Much of our legacy informal relationship work is simply not there – our quarterly review sessions, customer visits, and regular product and services trade shows. Whether you are a division of a large enterprise or highly-targeted SaaS in […]
It’s been a journey these last couple of weeks. I’ve been working with teams in large businesses to help them execute – in other words, lock in – on the right project, the right team, and the right plan. Of course, it’s challenging to do this work remotely, but honestly, it’s more than that. Decisions and momentum […]
