It’s a phrase I heard just last week, “we may have the same badge, but we are not on the same team.” When you hear something like that, it’s highly likely you have just discovered that unseen boundary in the firm called a “silo.” And in the fast-moving agile era, silos are way too costly. […]
“All of a sudden, I was on the defensive and we had just gotten started…” “They jumped on my first chart, and it went downhill from there…” Internal reviews are a way of life in larger, complex firms. Once a plan is locked in and authorized, the third leg of the stool is tracking its […]
One-shot. The small R&D team had been working for months, laying the groundwork for what they hoped would be a dramatic new product. It seemed like it had it all: market runway, clients who were accessible by the existing team, and good utilization of the firm’s existing capabilities. Unfortunately, many firms have a process that […]
For many of you reading, it can be a very common pattern. In reflecting on your program to encourage Growth Leadership in your firm, it sure seems like you’ve made the investment. You’ve provided training, workshops and outside speaker events. Yet when you look at the results and that fresh new work you’ve been expecting, […]
Not a month goes by that I don’t have a conversation around one of these observations: “We simply can’t add expertise fast enough” “We don’t have the capital budget to bring that component to market at scale” “The return on investment for our core products is flat, and I think the root is in our […]
I had an energetic conversation during a workshop session recently – it was one of those moments when ideas are just flowing. We were talking about the very low success rate of new projects inside established firms (it’s about 1 in 5), and the role that the “business case” plays in the success or demise […]
I had a very spirited discussion with the top technical leader in a firm recently during a diagnostic phone call. We were talking about the innovation function of the firm (it is always interesting to explore why firms set up a separate innovation function) and the character of the projects they were taking on there. […]
I had the opportunity to do a workshop recently with a group of senior executives where we spent some time thinking about this question: “what has changed to make the process of getting growth and change programs done in firms so difficult?” The narrow road to breakout growth has two ditches. These ditches are formed […]
The “workshop zone” is the term I give to those firms and businesses that irregularly pursue growth projects. You might think this would limit the category to smaller firms, but that would be wrong. It turns out that some surprisingly large firms only truly activate growth programs – defined as new activities that are built […]
I’ve had a chance to speak for and facilitate several private sessions for groups of senior executives. The goal of these sessions is to help them develop the structure needed to efficiently develop and execute growth work. At the beginning of each session, I ask a series of questions designed to gather insight about the […]
