Getting organic growth projects done in medium and large firms is hard work. It’s even harder when you’re doing it in addition to your “day job.” These projects are often accomplished by setting up an internal incubator. This space is typically well removed from the main “cube farm,” which allows the product team member/ innovator […]
The frustration was visible, “I just don’t get it,” she said, face flushed and jaw clenched. “We worked nights and weekends for the last 18 months getting this ready. And now not to see any orders in the pipeline? It’s too much.” I had three conversations with executives in the last 10 days – all […]
True Story: Early in my career, the firm I was with had the good fortune of receiving a large windfall tax credit that resulted in both a hiring blitz and an ability to suddenly move forward with a number of programs that had been on the drawing board for a long time. Naturally, while the […]
Which is more challenging: the internal organizational resistance or market resistance? A portion of my work is spent with cohorts of upwardly mobile, mid-senior leaders who are developing their growth programs as part of their commitment to professional development. One of them asked me this question during a recent coaching session, and as usual, it […]
It’s that moment. It’s among the hardest things that growth leaders need to do. After discovering and validating a new product or service (which seems like the hard part), they need to bring the people on board that can help scale and integrate the offering. This is the point when many strong and well-built new […]
If it wasn’t real, it could have been off a movie set. I walked and walked…past the administrative and waiting area and inside the office. I had never seen anything quite like this: enormous inlaid desk, conference table, glass cases full of expensive travel artifacts and carpet so thick you had to be careful not […]
Just last week I had a chance to meet a senior leader from a manufacturing firm for an introductory discussion. As we began talking, I could tell she was coming from a day of hard tactical work, and we’d need to elevate our viewpoint to get to the insight she was looking for. The topic […]
Brace yourself for it: the click bait posts will be coming to your inbox soon, with titles like, “The Top Ten Trends to Watch in 2017”, or “Don’t Miss These Three for 2023.” Why do marketing and consulting firms amplify these and deluge us with them like clockwork every year? Peter Drucker gives us a […]
So, you’ve just completed planning for the next 3-5 years and feel really good about your baked in growth. You are launching products, have some good organic growth for services already in the market and are investing in some game-changing R&D. Each of these areas has been well vetted and you’re confident that you can […]
The question hangs like a fog over every firm I have the opportunity to work with. Simply stated, how do we get a hard driving and skeptical leadership team to be willing to adopt this promising, yet nascent, new project? Inevitably, once they have an established business and more than one hundred employees, the organization […]
