Colonel John Boyd was an enlistee in the Army Air Corps late in World War II. With the war ending quickly, he went on to be a pilot in the Korean conflict, and was later invited to the most prestigious fighter training school of the time. It was here that he would develop his most […]
One of the perks of being a global advisor with deep roots in the Midwest is the advantage it provides in terms of helping me better see the rich contrast and unique ways each region is predisposed to building value. We all see things through the lens of our formative experiences, and after three decades […]
“I call it the existence theorem, Scott, and it makes no sense to learn anything else until you’ve crossed that bridge…” I was working with the leader of a new team that we had recently acquired as a part of our division. Far from our usual experience with acquisitions, this one was going well. […]
One airshow act that always pleases is when an aircraft lands on top of a moving car. What makes it immensely interesting every time I see the act, is knowing that every landing, even on a fixed runway, is unique due to wind, ambient temperature and traction. Add to that a moving vehicle and the […]
You’ve just landed your new role with your freshly-minted diploma and been given your first big assignment. As you prepare to get started, you recall that case study where a group went into the “war room,” held deep and lengthy brainstorming sessions and then had “the moment.” From there, it was merely a distribution problem. […]
When I travel internationally, I always find it fascinating to visit the corner office of my client. Inevitably there is a map of the world on the wall, and you can bet that the center of the map is where you are standing. Yes, it’s more than a metaphor – we all really want to […]
We were running a workshop and the teams had gotten their projects up on the walls using flip charts. As I walked around, I saw solid work, but it was short of inspiring – a critical quality in this age of distraction and competition if a project is going to find its way to full […]
I had just gotten the word. We had hand chosen a dozen subject matter experts to put together an early stage probe into a promising new market. We had been making solid strategic progress with some very big names, but we had also just been through an organizational change tucked under another acquisition that had […]
We had an amazing product change: it was truly lightning in a bottle. The group I was leading had discovered an unserved need through some deep customer problem solving that we had been called in to help with. We had enough discretionary time to get the basic work done and to do some limited […]
I remember unboxing it. One of my colleagues had ordered a benchtop milling machine for our engineering lab by convincing our team leader that it would help us avoid costly schedule delays by allowing us to make minor tweaks to prototype parts in the design work we were doing. I recall my thoughts toggling […]
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